A new face has announced a 2018 bid for the state legislature. Monroe County Democrat Adam Rodriguez will challenge four-term Republican incumbent Rosemary Brown for State Representative of Pennsylvania’s 189th District.“I’ve been paying attention to what’s going on Harrisburg, and I think there needs to be a change,” Rodriguez said. “I’m running so people’s lives can be better in my district.”Rodriguez, who [...]
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الخميس، 14 ديسمبر 2017
Target’s $550M Purchase of Shipt, Summed Up in a Single Word: Amazon
Target is gearing up for the next round of grocery wars.
The retailer announced Wednesday that it would buy grocery delivery service Shipt for $550 million.
Same-day delivery through Shipt will be available in half of Target’s more than 1,800 stores in early 2018. And by the 2018 holiday season, Target delivery will be an option at the majority of the company’s stores and in all major markets, a statement said.
Shipt works with a variety of regional grocery chains to provide delivery to customers who pay $99 per year or $14 per month for the convenience. The more than 20,000 Shipt shoppers, who are independent contractors, retrieve items from stores in 72 cities and deliver them to customers’ homes in as little as one hour.
Shipt will operate independently of Target, despite the buyout. An email to Shipt subscribers from founder and CEO Bill Smith said that Shipt will continue to add other retailers to its delivery service.
What Expanded Target Delivery Means in Grocery Wars
Target has been fine-tuning its grocery options since long before Amazon bought Whole Foods. In August, it acquired transportation company Grand Junction, through which it tested same-day delivery for customers in New York City.
The retailer also announced in September that it lowered prices on grocery and household items, and simplified its in-store pricing signage.
The same month, it expanded the Restock program, which offers $4.99 one-day shipping on more than 15,000 household essentials.
And while Amazon seems to be the grocery retailer to beat, as Sarah Halzack of Bloomberg recently wrote, there’s still time for other services to lure in shoppers since the online grocery ordering concept is still so new.
Lisa Rowan is a senior writer and producer 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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Get Free Krispy Kreme on Ugly Sweater Day (Even if Your Sweater’s Not Ugly)
It’s ugly sweater season again, and it’s starting to get out of hand.
Remember when ugly sweaters were funny, cool finds at a secondhand shop or your crazy uncle’s closet? Now every department store has a whole section of crazy sweaters with holiday puns and flashing lights during this time of year.
The ugly sweaters even have their own holiday. Dec. 15 is now National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day.
Not one to be left out of the party, Krispy Kreme is celebrating National Ugly Sweater Day with a buy one, get one deal.
BOGO Original Glazed Dozen Donuts
Tomorrow morning, after you throw on your newest ugly Christmas sweater, swing by your local Krispy Kreme on your way to work.
On Friday, Dec. 15, Krispy Kreme will offer a free dozen of its original glazed donuts with the purchase of any dozen donuts. The promotion proudly states, “Just like your favorite old holiday sweater, there’s a hole in your favorite old holiday treat.”
Groan.
The deal is for one day only and available at participating stores, which appears to be every store except those in Dothan, Alabama; Florence, South Carolina; and Macon and Warner Robins, Georgia. Apparently some folks in the Southeast aren’t having any of this ugly sweater nonsense.
You don’t actually have to wear an ugly sweater to get the deal. Just pop in and grab a couple of dozen donuts, and become a Friday morning office hero.
Tyler Omoth is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder who loves soaking up the sun and finding creative ways to help others. He believes that donuts are not breakfast food but a tasty dessert. Catch him on Twitter at @Tyomoth.
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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How Retail Brands Use Music to Generate More Sales
From Muzak to Mood Media, retailers are banking on music for more sales.
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How Retail Brands Use Music to Generate More Sales
From Muzak to Mood Media, retailers are banking on music for more sales.
Source Business & Money | HowStuffWorks http://ift.tt/2yti4rm
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Board games to boost your kids’ life skills
Unlike the latest bit of plastic or Disney toy, traditional board games will entertain your kids and teach them about money too.
In our family, the all-time favourite board game for several years has been murder mystery game Cluedo, good for developing logic and speculation skills. But I think this festive season we’ll be playing more of the landlord game Monopoly.
My younger daughter (aged eight) loves being the banker, which is good for her maths, while I can see the eldest (aged 11) benefiting from the game’s important financial lessons: always keep an emergency fund, manage cash flow by earning income, hone your negotiating skills. It’s also an introduction to the concept of investments and long-term payoffs (especially as the game can last for hours).
But we can’t play Monopoly all holiday, so I asked my friends in the financial services industry to recommend their favourite games to teach children about money. Here are the results:
The Game of Life
Players can make their own exciting choices as they move through the twists and turns of life. You move the car token around the game board to experience unexpected surprises related to family, career, holidays, and other milestones of life. The player with the most money at the end of the game wins.
Freelance financial journalist Kara Gammell says: “I loved it as a child and it looks at bills, insurance, family costs and even retirement.”
Number of players: Two to four. Suitable from: Eight years
Pack of playing cards
Faith Archer, personal finance journalist and money blogger at Much More With Less, says: “I used to play Newmarket with my grandma, betting with pennies.” The aim of Newmarket, suitable for three to eight players, is to get rid of your cards first, and to win stakes by playing certain cards.
Lee Blackwell, head of media and public relations at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, says: “My gran use to fleece us at Gin Rummy, which taught me the power of saving your pocket money, but I’m not sure about inter-generational fairness!”
The aim of Gin Rummy, a two-player game, is to score points, hitting an agreed number of points or more, usually 100, before the opponent does. The basic game strategy is to improve one’s hand by forming melds and eliminating deadwood.
Scrabble or Junior Scrabble
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles bearing a single letter on to a board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. It teaches children to spell and there is mathematical skill involved in counting the scores for words in all different directions.
Number of players: Two to four. Suitable from: 10 years (or five to eight years for Junior Scrabble)
Snakes and Ladders
Snakes and Ladders is an Indian board game regarded as a worldwide classic. A player’s progression up the board from 1 to 100 represents the journey of life, while the snakes and ladders represent the vices and virtues along the journey. A simple race contest based on sheer luck, it is popular with young children.
Jemma Jackson, public relations manager at Seven Investment Management, says: “It’s great for numeracy and even better if you play with two dice.”
Number of players: Two or more. Suitable from: Three years
Win a copy of bMoneywize
bMoneywize introduces the complex concepts of financial literacy to kids and opens a dialogue between them and their parents about money. It encourages maths skills, while teaching valuable life lessons. The scenarios that are explained are every-day and mostly commonplace. They were carefully picked to depict the lifestyle of the average person.
The game can be bought via the website, Bmoneywize.co.uk. It usually costs £24.99, plus postage and packing. However, Moneywise readers can buy it for £19.99, using the code Moneywise from 1 until 15 December 2017.
Moneywise also has five games to give away. For your chance to win, email editor@ moneywise.co.uk with your idea for the best toy or game to teach children about money.
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The most significant money stories of 2017
2017 has been a year full of ups and downs in the world of money. Here are the most significant stories, hand-picked by the Moneywise team.
HOME FINANCES: Energy Price Cap
Helen Knapman
In the run-up to this year’s general election, Theresa May pledged to cap energy prices as part of her campaign.
The announcement followed hot on the heels of suppliers upping gas and electricity bills – among the Big Six providers, prices rose by up to 14.9% on average. Pre-payment customers had also already seen their bills capped in April.
Since being re-elected as Prime Minister, Mrs May has kept true to her promise – in October, the government published a Draft Tariff Cap Bill.
Under the Bill, a cap will be implemented to limit the cost of standard variable tariffs and other default tariffs that consumers are moved to at the end of a fixed-term deal. This will remain in place until 2020, but energy regulator Ofgem will have the power to extend it for a year on up to three occasions.
However, the level of the cap has yet to be set and there is a concern providers will simply set their prices to the level of the cap. In addition, many energy experts have warned that a cap won’t encourage consumers to switch, which could save them more.
Read the full story: 18 million energy customers to see bills capped by government
SCAMS AND RIP-OFFS: Equifax data breach
Edmund Greaves
In October, Equifax announced that 693,665 UK customers were affected by a serious breach in its security, and a potential loss of data.
This is a calamity for the people who have had their data stolen, but the Equifax data breach also marks a low point for consumer data security and confidence in corporate responsibility for data.
Criminals who gain access to Equifax’s customer data can quite easily build fake financial profiles and cause all sorts of trouble. The sheer depth of information that a credit report mines can be dangerous in the wrong hands.
A new marketplace for data, both legal and illicit, has emerged with the onset of social media, online financial management and other fintech. The breadth and depth of consumer data at stake is enormous, and the Equifax breach is the most alarming signal that now more than ever consumers need to be conscious of what they share online.
General Data Protection Regulation, which intends to strengthen and unify data protection within the European Union, becomes enforceable next year and goes a fair way to protecting consumers’ rights. But the burden will ultimately fall to individuals to make sure they don’t get caught out in the first place.
Read the full story: Investigation into Equifax data breach launched by financial regulator
PROPERTY: The rise of renting
Hannah Nemeth
The news that 5.8 million (24%) households will be renting privately by 2021 – up from five million today – signals a change in attitude towards renting privately, despite homeownership still being the Holy Grail for many Brits.
Knight Frank’s annual report into the Private Rented Sector, which came out in mid-June, was based on a survey of 10,000 tenants and 26 big housing investors to get an understanding of how private renting will develop over the next few years.
While two thirds of tenants are saving up for a deposit for their first home, Knight Frank suggests that more people are renting out of choice because it is more affordable than homeownership.
The report touches on Build to Rent, which is part of a government initiative to increase the supply of high-quality homes for tenants.
These schemes are typically owned by institutional investors, rather than buy-to-let landlords.
According to research by Savills for the British Property Federation, there are 95,918 Build to Rent homes complete, under construction or in the planning pipeline across the UK. I think this sector will become increasingly important as a means of providing new homes while homeownership remains out of the reach for so many people.
Read the full story: A quarter of households will rent privately by 2021
SAVING & BANKING: Savers continue to battle rising inflation
Adam Williams
Since February inflation has been above the Bank of England’s 2% target, rising to a peak of 3% in September and October.
This means that even if you have one of the top savings accounts, you are likely to be getting poorer in real terms as inflation whittles away the value of your cash. Since the summer, there have been few open-to all savings accounts that have been able to beat inflation, no matter how long you’re willing to lock your cash away for.
This means hard-pressed savers are being forced to use more ingenious methods to make their money grow.
Savvy consumers can use a combination of current accounts and regular savings accounts to beat inflation, although this does require extra legwork. See the Moneywise model savings portfolio on pages 38 and 39 to find out how to achieve this.
There is some hope that now the Bank of England has increased the base rate to 0.5% that savers will see a corresponding boost. However, it is often the case that banks are quick to pass on rate cuts to savers but slower to react when the decision is in the favour of their customers.
Read the full story: Six savings accounts to beat inflation
PENSIONS: The final salary transfer conundrum
Rachel Lacey
The number of people seeking to transfer out of final salary or defined benefit (DB) pension schemes – which pay a guaranteed income for life related to salary – has soared over the past 12 months, the Financial Conduct Authority says.
Scheme members are being drawn by high transfer values and the ability to spend their cashed in pension as they wish, following the introduction of the pension freedoms in April 2015.
Meanwhile, three million final salary pension savers have just a 50% chance of receiving their benefits in full, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) has warned.
The PLSA says the majority of final salary or DB pension schemes, which have 11 million members in the UK, look sustainable. But for the weakest schemes, ‘millions of people’s retirement incomes are now at risk’ due to a combination of factors: increases in life expectancy, record low interest rates and lower investment returns.
However, the Financial Conduct Authority is concerned that fi nancial advisers are recommending pension transfers that may not be in the individual’s best interest. The regulator found that recommendations to transfer were inappropriate in more than half of the cases it examined.
Read the full story: Surge in final salary transfers
INVESTING: Neil Woodford’s apology to investors
Moira O'Neill
Leading fund manager Neil Woodford (pictured below) had to apologise for the poor performance of his £8.7 billion CF Woodford Equity Income fund, which is a member of the Moneywise First 50 Funds.
In September, following the news that the fund was bottom of the Investment Association’s UK Equity Income fund sector for its one-year performance, he said: “It’s been a difficult period. And I’m very sorry for the poor performance that we’ve delivered really now since 2016.”
Investors were left wondering how patient they should be when a fund manager underperforms, and if they should sell up now or wait for Mr Woodford to deliver on his pledge to turn things around.
Some commentators say Mr Woodford is managing too much money and too many products – he launched a third fund, called the Income Focus fund, in April this year.
Others say Mr Woodford has always rewarded long-term investors despite rough patches in his career.
In a September online poll, we asked: “Will you buy, sell or hold Neil Woodford?” Among the 63% of Moneywise.co.uk readers who said they hold the CF Woodford Equity Income fund, the majority (eight in 10) said they would continue to invest at the same level or increase their holdings. The remainder said they would sell some or all of their holdings.
Read the full story: Neil Woodford: ‘I'm very sorry for the poor performance’
A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE: Brexit
Mark Stammers
As a family, Brexit has affected our jobs, pensions, savings and even our holiday this year.
My wife works for one of the large investment companies based in the City of London. Her firm already has advanced plans to move core parts of its business to mainland Europe. This will make her future employment a lot less secure.
Our pensions have not performed well in the last year, due to the fact a large chunk is invested in UK companies. They have been held back by the slow Brexit-affected growth of the UK economy. We could have sought greater returns in emerging markets, but with both of us in our 50s it’s a risky strategy.
The family’s savings have not grown at all. With two adult children still living at home, we have had to use savings to meet rising food and energy costs, which have risen partly due to Brexit woes.
Even this year’s holiday to Florida was affected by Brexit. The flights were more expensive because of the costs of aviation fuel in the UK, which has risen due to adverse foreign exchange rates. The exchange rates also reduced the buying power of our spending money, as our pounds sterling bought far fewer US dollars.
Read the full story: Brexit concern increases among Moneywise users
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How to Build a Really Effective and Meaningful Home Exercise Routine You’ll Actually Want To Do
I’m not going to slice and dice it: If you want to get into good physical shape, the best way to do it is to get a gym membership and hire a personal trainer who will cultivate a plan for your fitness and stay on top of you to make sure that you achieve that plan. Your trainer appointments become a part of your calendar and your life.
The guidance of a good trainer and the equipment and change of scenery of a gym are incredibly powerful tools for helping you improve your physical fitness.
The problem? They’re expensive. Really expensive. Unless you’re lucky enough to have some kind of free or discounted gym membership or trainer, you’re going to be paying a lot of money for this.
I recently got quotes for a gym membership and a twice weekly session with a personal trainer (for the purposes of this article) and… wow. I was expecting it to be costly, but the average numbers were incredible: For a gym membership and twice-weekly hour-long trainer sessions, $300 a month was the average fee.
That’s a lot of cash. There are many people out there who can’t afford it, and quite a few more who could afford it but aren’t willing to do so.
The question then becomes: What are the other options? What else can you do to get in shape and stay in shape?
Over the years, I’ve talked about a number of options that have worked for me at various times. I’ve written about five inexpensive/free home exercise programs that I’ve used, about hiking and rucking, and about general approaches I use for fitness.
Yet, it was a recent reader mailbag question that really inspired this post. It was a nice question from someone who was earnestly asking for advice on how to get started exercising from home, and I gave what I considered to be a good simple answer. I pointed him toward the Darebee 15-minute morning workout as a good starting point. Just do that routine every morning until it becomes easy.
That question of his really stuck in my mind, though. What exactly does a person do if they’re out of shape and don’t have the financial resources to commit to paying for a gym membership or hiring a personal trainer often enough to really make an impact?
Here’s the only solution that has ever really worked for me in terms of solving this problem.
Figure Out What You’re Doing and Why
This is the first step in this whole process. We’re not even looking at specific exercises here, but simply why you want to exercise. What’s your reason for wanting to do so?
In my experience, the best way to make goals tangible is to specifically imagine the life you want to have in the future. What do you want your life to look like in six months or a year or five years, whatever your time horizon might be?
If your vision involves losing weight, then I’m here to tell you right now that the most effective thing you can do, by far, is to watch your calorie intake like a hawk. Download a calorie counting smartphone app and count literally every calorie that goes into your mouth. Calorie-burning exercise will help, but it’s just one smaller piece in the puzzle.
If your vision involves being able to do some specific activity without feeling like you’re dying or getting out of breath, then your exercise should center around that activity or around exercises that will directly prepare you for that activity. For example, if you want to go on a hilly hike without stopping for air every five minutes, then you might want to consider things like walks that take you up hills or walking up and down stairs in your own home.
If your vision involves being able to take a strenuous yoga class without making a fool of yourself, then your routine should be about working on basic yoga routines at home and learning how to hold difficult positions.
If your vision involves six pack abs, then you’re going to want to focus heavily on ab exercises at home – stomach crunches and so on.
Focus on your vision of yourself in the future and think about what things you can be doing to take you from where you’re at now to where you want to be. That vision of yourself in the future becomes a direct motivator because it’s directly tied to the types of exercise you want to do.
Write down that vision of the future somewhere where you’re going to see it every day, and leave some space below it for now.
Schedule It and Make It Non-Negotiable
You have some sense of what your big goal is. Now, you have to make sure that you’re doing something on a very frequent basis to move toward that goal, and that’s where exercise comes in. Daily exercise, or at least several-sessions-a-week exercise, is the key to achieving most of the big visions for the future that people have regarding their fitness.
One of the big reasons that people find success with a trainer or with going to the gym is that it becomes an appointment for them. They have to meet the trainer at 10 AM. They have to go to the gym at 4 PM. This literally becomes part of their calendar and they treat that appointment as very important.
However, that type of “appointment scheduling” does not have to be restricted to meetings with a trainer or visits to a gym outside your home. You can schedule a time on your own to exercise anywhere. The key is to treat it as untouchable, just as people often do with their trainer appointments.
If you decide to start a daily exercise routine, it needs to become a dead-on requirement that you at least do something with regards to exercise. Put it on your daily calendar at least several times a week, if not daily, and don’t miss that appointment. If you treat it as something unimportant that you can just skip, you’ll never achieve your goal.
This takes discipline, and discipline is hard. I’d argue that the single most challenging aspect of exercise is the discipline needed to consistently do it. That is the key ingredient and, in the end, that’s up to you.
My own strategy for this is very straightforward. Exercise is a scheduled thing for me – it happens at a certain time, each and every day. This is on my calendar. I also have a personal ongoing goal to actually do that exercise 25 days out of the month, and my bigger goal is to do that every month for a year. That’s 300 exercise sessions, and that’s going to make a big difference.
Finding the Right Exercises
Another major key to successfully exercising without paying for the gym or for a trainer or for a bunch of equipment is to find exercises that are actually enjoyable for you while also moving you toward whatever your big goal/vision is.
In other words, start off with the vision you have for where you want to be in the future and select exercises that seem at least tolerable that will move you toward that goal.
I’ll use myself as an example. Some of the things I want to do in the next few years include some very long walks, a long-ish hike up a fairly steep incline, continuing taekwondo with my family, and being agile enough and have enough cardio health to be able to help my kids get ready for their soccer seasons.
If I take those visions of the future as my goals, then I start to look into and choose exercises that move me toward my goals.
For example, it’s clear that I’m focused on distance walking, with both hiking and long-distance walks, and I also need to improve leg strength and cardio for hiking up hills. Both taekwondo and soccer call on flexibility-related exercises as well as exercises that improve balance. Taekwondo also calls on core strength a lot, as well as arm strength to an extent.
So, what I’m looking for are exercises I enjoy that involve strengthening my legs for walking and going up inclines, improving flexibility and balance, and improving cardio and core strength with a bit of arm strength work as well.
What can I do for those things that I’ll actually enjoy?
Well, for leg strengthening, I can go on walks, particularly ones that involve inclines. Stair climbing will also help.
For cardio, I can do pretty much any vigorous exercise that puts me out of breath.
For core strength and arm strength, I’ll just follow the recommendations of my taekwondo instructor, who tells me that the best things I can do are leg lifts, planks, squats, and push-ups.
For balance and flexibility, I’m looking straight at yoga. My son’s soccer coach also recommends that I do lunges to help with my children’s soccer preparations.
So, based entirely on my goals and what sounds interesting, my exercise is going to include stretching, long walks, stair climbing, vigorous cardio routines, leg lifts, crunches, planks, squats, push-ups, yoga, and lunges.
Those exercises all draw on specific things that I need to do to improve my overall health and also improve on the specific things I want to be doing in life.
How do you do this type of translation for yourself? Ask. Ask friends who are physically fit for exercises that they would do if they were a beginner and hoping to achieve a certain thing. Find fitness message boards online and ask.
Turning Exercises Into Routine
The next step is to take all of those exercises and develop some sort of routine that you can follow on a daily or at least several times a week basis. In other words, you’re taking those exercise ideas and translating them into what you actually fill your half-hour or hourlong appointment with.
My strategy has been to use progression as my friend.
What I typically do in a given day is to do the Darebee daily bodyweight workout as a starting point each day. This routine takes about 15 minutes or so and is a simple way to add some variety.
I follow that up by doing a very straightforward routine of all of the things I mentioned above. I do stretching (I actually do the stretching before doing the Darebee daily), stair climbing, vigorous cardio routines, leg lifts, crunches, planks, squats, push-ups, and lunges. (At a different point in the day, I go on a walk because it clears my mind and I do yoga during another break in my writing, a short routine that also clears my mind.)
For each of those exercises, I’m following a progression pattern. What that means is that my goal is to do a certain number of each of those exercises each day, and when I can do that number with ease, I move onto a harder version of that exercise.
Let’s use planks as an example. My goal is to do three 60 second planks of whatever type I’m doing right now, with a 15 second break between them. Thus, I spend exactly three and a half minutes on planks at most. When it becomes easy to do this, then I switch to a slightly harder version of the plank.
The easiest plank is a kneeling plank, where your knees are on the floor, you’re resting your weight on your elbows and forearms, and you’re keeping your upper body as straight as possible. When you can do that fairly easily for 60 seconds, then a 15 second break, then 60 seconds, then another break, then another 60 seconds, then it’s time to move onto a harder one.
There are many websites that list plank progressions and show you how to do a bunch of different plank variations in order from easy to hard. You can also find Youtube videos that show you exactly how to do it correctly. Just watch them and try to mirror them.
So, after I master the kneeling plank, I’ll switch to doing a side kneeling plank, which is a bit harder. After that, I’ll move to a normal plank – knees off the floor! When I can do that three times for 60 seconds with a 15 second break in between, I’ll move to a slightly harder one, and so on.
I do the exact same thing with other exercises. I use a stretching progression and a crunch progression and a squat progression. I find all of these progressions online using Google, and I use Youtube videos to make sure I’m doing them right. All of these things can be done really easily at home with either no equipment or extremely minimal equipment.
The nice thing about progressions is that they slowly get harder without getting longer, and it only gets harder at a pace that’s comfortable for you. As you do things over and over, they gradually become easier and easier and you find yourself moving up the progression until you hit some sort of personal physical limit.
For me, the environment is crucial. I usually turn on some up-tempo music while doing this, and I have a water bottle and a towel right there so I can wipe sweat from my face and keep myself hydrated.
So, here’s what I do each time I exercise. I have a simple checklist that I follow. It starts with getting a towel and a water bottle and the other things that I may need, then I go into the living room in our house which has a lot of open space. I have a checklist that I follow that starts with stretching, moves to the daily Darebee routine, and then follows through a list of progressions – stair climbing, leg lifts, crunches, jumping jacks, planks, squats, push-ups, and lunges. It takes about 40 minutes and I am always sweating profusely at the end.
Each specific exercise takes only a small amount of time and that time never really grows because I’m always just doing the same number of exercises. It’s just that the individual exercises get harder as I get stronger and more fit.
For example, I strive to do 100 squats each day. I recently moved to a new type of squat that involves squatting all the way down so that my fingers touch the floor and coming right back up with my arms extended. Those are much harder than the ones I was doing before, so I give up well below 100. My short term goal each day is to try to beat my previous number by just one. That’s what I want to do today. Once I actually crack 100, then my goal is to do 100 five days in a row. When I do that, then I move to a slightly harder squat, which I’m not going to be able to do 100 of. The longest this exercise will ever take is the time it takes to do 100 squats. Sometimes, it’ll be even shorter.
I try to keep going with an exercise until I’m panting and it seems almost impossible and sweat is pouring down in my face and my muscles are quivering and I’m giving it all I got to just get one more done so I can make today’s goal… and then it’s over.
That’s it! I’m done, I towel off, I take a shower, and then I go on with my day. From the literal moment I decide to exercise to having done all of it and showered and gone back to my other activities takes less than an hour and I am to do it every day, though my actual hard goal is five times a week (there are often days, especially weekends, when I just can’t fit it in).
Setting Up Your Own
There are really three fundamental pieces to exercise.
One, it’s got to be meaningful – you have to be doing exercises that lead to something that has real long term meaning in your life. It is so easy to just get demotivated when you’re doing something that doesn’t clearly lead to something you really want!
So, start by asking yourself what you want. Make that picture of the future where you’re doing some activity at a level that you’d like to be doing it, then dial that back and figure out what daily thing you can be doing to move in that direction.
Two, it’s got to be an appointment. You have to treat the time devoted to this as incredibly important – as important as going to work or as important as taking care of a child. If you view it as something you can easily blow off, you won’t stick with it. It has to be a daily appointment, period. Make that agreement with yourself. Write it down in your own handwriting. Add it to your daily calendar. Put a reminder on your phone. Do whatever it is you need to do to nudge you toward that daily discipline.
Three, it’s got to challenge you but not kill you while still being enjoyable, and that challenge has to grow with you. For me, I find that value in doing progression exercises for specific things that I know will lead to the activities I want in life.
You can achieve all of those objectives without throwing money at a personal trainer or at a gym membership. It simply requires discipline and routine.
It’s not going to be easy. It’s never going to be easy – if it were, everyone could do it. However, it will be rewarding, and it won’t have to drain your finances. In fact, over the long haul, it’s very likely to produce financial rewards in the form of lower health care costs and more life opportunities.
Good luck.
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Your Home Could Be at Risk This Holiday Season: Here’s How to Keep it Safe
We typically view the holiday season as a merry time of family, friends and laughter, where nothing can go wrong. But as wonderful as the days surrounding Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s and other winter holidays can be, they bring with them increased risk to our homes, cars, family, pets and health.
To safeguard the people and things you love most — and to protect your finances during an already expensive time of the year — be proactive in risk prevention. Christmas lights, sugar cookies and Frank Sinatra may be on your mind, but leave time to consider home security systems, oven safety and healthy eating, as well.
Here are a few ways to protect your property, family and health this holiday season.
Protecting Your Home: Burglaries
The holidays pose several threats to your home and the safety of those living inside. Perhaps the largest threat is a home invasion.
I spoke with Officer Brandon in Northern California about burglaries during the holidays. “Burglaries usually come down to a house that is the easiest to get into while drawing the least amount of attention,” Brandon said. For example, the holiday season leaves an above normal number of houses unoccupied. The rise in number of unoccupied houses provides burglars with more opportunities.”
In short, criminals know that houses are much more likely to be vacant while families travel during the holiday season. However, a report from the US Department of Justice suggests that nearly three in 10 home invasions happen while someone is home, meaning your home isn’t necessarily safe just because you’re hosting Christmas dinner.
So what can you do? Officer Brandon gave me a few tips to deter burglars from targeting your home: “Having your property distinctly divided from public areas can help, such as a 6-foot fence or even plants around your property line. Motion sensor lights also deter people from entering.”
Officer Brandon also recommended using lights on the inside of your home. “Having your interior lights on timers gives the appearance that someone is home. Putting lights on timers in different rooms set at different times creates the illusion that someone is in the house moving about.”
And of course, Officer Brandon highly recommends a security system. “But if you can’t afford one or aren’t allowed to install one in your residence, the sign from the alarm company or a window sticker is a good second option. Burglars will pick the house that poses the least risk to them: A house with a fence that has to be climbed, is well lit and has a security system poses a higher risk of being caught.”
Protecting Your Home: Fires
The holiday season also brings an increased risk of fire, with nearly a third of all house fires occurring in December, January and February.
“Around the holidays is when temperatures drop and residents start using their fireplaces and furnaces,” explained Sean O’Neill, a firefighter from Dayton, Ohio. For fireplaces, O’Neill recommends hiring a chimney sweep prior to the first use each winter to remove built-up creosote and nested birds. O’Neill also advises hiring a service person to inspect your furnace before running your heat each winter.
But it’s not just heating mechanisms that pose a fire hazard near the holidays; other common sources of accidental fires include dry Christmas trees, strung holiday lights, candles and kitchen mishaps.
O’Neill offered a few tips:
- For the kitchen: “Keep kitchen grease contained, keep the burners clear of flammable items and use timers and appropriate cooking temperatures.
- For lighting: “Be careful with how much you plug into outlets. Only use surge protectors or extension cords that have a fuse in the system. Do not plug additional extension cords or surge protectors into ones already in use; this is called ‘daisy chaining’ and is dangerous.”
Protecting Your Car: Maintenance
The holidays also see an increase in travel during what can be the most hazardous road conditions in some parts of the country. For example, Christmas and New Year’s together see a nearly 25% increase in the number of drivers traveling more than 50 miles to a destination.
Before long-distance travel or regular commuting in the snow, take your car in to a trusted mechanic to test out your tires, brakes, heater, lights, battery and other important components. Replace your windshield wiper blades to ensure visibility, and consider snow tires depending on your location.
Protecting Your Family: Kids and Pets
It’s not just your property that is at risk around the holidays. As a parent (or pet parent), you can also be proactive in providing a safe environment to your children and pets.
SafeKids.org provides a number of safety tips for parents with small children around the holidays, especially if you are hosting the holiday and are unaccustomed to having little ones around. For starters, don’t use small decorations that could pose a choking hazard, and keep lights and candles out of reach. You should also consider age-appropriate gifts for tiny children, keep kids out of the kitchen when baking and make sure everyone is bundled up warmly if going out to play in the snow.
For pets, it is also important to keep ornaments, lights and other decorations out of reach, especially if you have a dog or cat with a destructive side. Do not feed your animal holiday leftovers or alcohol, and remember to keep your four-legged friend feeling safe in large gatherings or during New Year’s fireworks, according to the ASPCA.
Protecting Your Health: Food and Drink
The holidays are a time of indulgence where we tend to overeat and maybe drink too much spiked eggnog. It is important during the holidays to balance fun with safety.
AmericanAddictionCenters.org warns of the dangers of binge eating and provides a helpful infographic comparing the average calorie consumption during a holiday dinner to the consumption the average American should shoot for (3,670 on average vs. 1,135 ideal).
Excessive alcohol consumption can also be a problem — not just for your liver but also for our roadways. With traditional taxis and the advent of apps like Uber and Lyft, however, there is never an excuse for drunk driving.
Keep the holiday season merry and bright this year by focusing on how you can keep things safe. Being proactive is the best way to ensure a safe holiday for you and yours.
Timothy Moore is an editor and a freelance writer living in Nashville with his partner and their two dogs. They wish you and your family a happy holiday season.
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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Digital Detox: How and Why to Recharge Your Mind With an Unplugged Weekend
On a recent Saturday, I had quite an odd morning. I woke up, reached for my phone to check my email, but stopped myself before grabbing it. I got out of bed and instinctively reached for the Fitbit on my nightstand, but then stopped myself. I didn’t open my computer, log in to a streaming music service, and listen to music as I made a pot of coffee.
I was doing a “digital detox” for the weekend, and within five minutes of waking up I was already becoming more aware of just how large a role technology plays in my life.
Why a Digital Detox?
I was inspired to do a short-term digital detox partly because I like a challenge, and partly because I thought that taking a break from digital technology could have some significant health benefits. It scared me to learn that time spent on your smartphone is a reliable predictor of depression, especially since Americans in my age bracket check their phones, on average, 50 times per day.
We’re also getting worse sleep because of our smartphones, we think we can multitask on a zillion devices but really we can’t, and we’re increasingly becoming addicted to the internet. All of this is scientifically shown to be killing our productivity and making us less happy.
In short, we’ve all gone technology mad. While there are tremendous benefits to the modern, connected world, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
More people are realizing that there are benefits to taking a step back every once in awhile. It can help us gain some perspective on just how much we crave the dopamine hit that comes from checking social media, and whether we can find a new sense of calm by unplugging for a while.
I decided that I would go all out, and ban not just my phone, but all internet- and screen-related technology. That meant no computer, no TV, no Fitbit, no digital music, no internet use whatsoever.
What I Noticed
After my initial disorientation that first morning, I took to the project quite well. My anxiety and agitation quickly gave way to a feeling of freedom.
I’ve been known to do quite a bit of computer work on the weekends, whether on side projects or for my main job. Knowing that I couldn’t work, and not having to feel bad about it, felt like a weight off my shoulders. I felt more engaged with my surroundings, and more able to think about big picture topics, as opposed to fretting about what I was going to do the next hour or two.
I say this not to brag, but to show that I really do think there can be deep benefits gained by stepping out of the unceasing flow of digital information from time to time. And I found that I’m not alone in this regard.
There’s been a growing movement over the past decade geared around the idea of unplugging. It seems like more and more people, from lifestyle bloggers to burned-out tech workers and writers are finding benefits in stepping away from the screens from time to time. There’s even a National Day of Unplugging! (It’s coming up on March 9th.)
The movement is bolstered by the flood of studies that show we’re more productive after giving our brains a break, that spending time in nature and away from devices can improve cognitive functioning, and that giving our minds time to “wander” can improve creative thinking.
That all being said, it’s not like I didn’t think about my devices, or desire some screen time. There were a couple times, especially as I was reading, when I had a strong urge to use the internet. Ordinarily, when I read something I want to know more about, I pop open my computer, head to Wikipedia, and look up whatever it is I want to dig into. I didn’t realize how powerful this urge was until I could no longer do it.
I also noticed that I really wanted to glance at the TVs playing in restaurants. I didn’t care if they were playing a C-SPAN rerun of a city council vote on zoning issues. Some deep part of me just wanted to see pixels on an LCD screen.
So, after making it all the way to Sunday night without faltering, I will admit that I stole a glance through a window while walking by a bar. I saw one play of a football game: A running back ran left for one yard. I can’t think of a less satisfying way to break a digital fast. The experience reminded me that most TV can be safely ignored without fear that you’ll miss something interesting.
Tips for an Unplugged Weekend
Based on my experience, I’d offer the following advice to others who want as smooth an unplugged weekend as possible:
Let people know that you’ll be unavailable. I emailed my immediate family and told them to contact my wife should something urgent come up. If you’re a more social person than I am, you might also want to make a Facebook post telling your friends that you’re not mad at them if you don’t respond to their texts for the next 48 hours.
Minimize your social engagements. I attended a party the Friday night before I started, so I felt like I got some human contact in before the detox began. I made no plans the weekend I’d be tech-free. I didn’t want to be trying to coordinate with friends without a cellphone. I know people used to do it all the time, but I still don’t know how. I figured it’d be easier to have a low-key introspective weekend.
Have a few physical books handy. I checked out several books from the library in different genres, and ended up reading large chunks of each of them. I would have gone a bit stir crazy if the only reading material in the house was books I’d already finished and whatever junk mail showed up.
Turn off your phone and computer and put them out of sight. My phone was off, but I left it out on the kitchen table all weekend. Every time I passed it, I was tempted to do just one quick pass of Instagram. This would have been less of a problem if it was buried in my closet.
Pick a weekend with nice weather. I ended up spending a ton of time outside, as it made it easier to avoid the siren call of my computer and Netflix. It helped a lot having beautiful weather.
Summing Up
I’m not going to pretend like I went through a profound transformation. It was just 48 hours, after all. But, I had a good enough time that I’m planning to incorporate a few of these unplugged weekends throughout my year. Maybe even one per month. It was that nice.
Finally, the experiment made me think of how we all intuitively know that exercise is useless if you never let your muscles recover. No one in their right mind would train with heavy weights for eight hours a day, seven days a week. You’d simply get burned out.
Yet, we put our brains through the equivalent of an exhausting physical workout, day after day. The constant stimulation from our phones and computers never gives our minds a chance to truly rest. Maybe it’s time we think of our brain more like a muscle, and give our noggins some downtime. If you do, you might be surprised at how refreshed and energized you feel.
Related Articles:
- 103 Things to Do During a Money-Free Weekend
- Personal Finance and the Flood of News and Information
- The Most Efficient, Science-Based Way to Learn and Memorize Nearly Anything
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