MAKE MONEY ONLINE POSTS: 02/14/18

الأربعاء، 14 فبراير 2018

Cash Bail Punishes Poor, But What's the Alternative?

The U.S.'s long-standing cash bail system produces two very different outcomes depending on how much money the defendant can scrape together.

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Cash Bail Punishes Poor, But What's the Alternative?

Panda Express is Starting the Year of the Dog With a Treasure

The Chinese New Year is this Friday, and fast-food chain Panda Express will celebrate the start of the Year of the Dog with a spicy freebie.

On Friday, Feb. 16, every Panda Express in the U.S. will hand out red envelopes. Each envelope will contain a coupon good for a free 8 Treasure Chicken Breast entree on a future visit.

The red envelopes will be available all day, and you don’t have to buy anything to get one, according to a Panda Express representative.

8 Treasure Chicken Breast is a new menu item created to celebrate the start of the Chinese New Year and is only available for a limited time. It features all-white-meat chicken breast, diced Chinese sausage, bell peppers, celery, fermented black beans and whole dry chili peppers all tossed in a wok with a rich, spicy sauce.

Red envelopes are traditionally given out during the Chinese New Year as a symbol of good luck and prosperity. Panda Express has certainly enjoyed some prosperity, having expanded to more than 2,000 locations worldwide.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. For personal reasons, he’s partial to the Year of the Pig.

Jessica Gray, an editorial assistant at The Penny Hoarder, contributed to this post.

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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Tax Breaks Rise from the Dead: See How They Might Apply to You

You may have an opportunity to apply unexpected tax breaks to tax year 2017, courtesy of the budget bill. See how many of them apply to you.

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Sam’s Club Plus Members Get Free Shipping (but Don’t Drop Amazon Prime Yet)

If you have a Sam’s Club membership, you might’ve been a little disgruntled last month to find out the company would close 63 locations. Well, the company released an announcement on Wednesday that might cheer you up.

Sam’s Club just revealed it will offer free shipping with no minimum purchase for all Plus members.

Hold on: Before you resume your bulk purchases of Mountain Dew, there’s some fine print.

Only ground shipping orders and products marked “free shipping” on Sam’s Club’s website are eligible. Items on the auction site, in-store-only items and most grocery products are also ineligible.

And unlike Amazon Prime, Sam’s Club won’t offer guaranteed two-day shipping.

So what can you get shipped for free?

Sam’s Club says 95% of the products on its website are eligible for free shipping, including nearly all of the club’s in-house Member’s Mark brand items.

Sam’s Club is also paring down its three membership options to two. Its Club membership is $45 per year and includes in-store shopping. The Plus membership is $100 per year and includes all the benefits of the Club membership, plus the free shipping.

Sam’s Club plans to focus on expanding its e-commerce sales through converting some of its closed stores to distribution centers — the first will open in Memphis, Tennessee, this spring — and eventually including free two-day shipping for Plus memberships.

Jen Smith is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. She hangs out on Instagram as @savingwithspunk.

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This Site Makes It Easy for Wedding Guests to Contribute to Your Honeymoon

Wedding registries are nothing new.

For almost a century, newly engaged couples have been making lists of must-haves to help guide their friends and family in the quest for the perfect wedding gift.

A five-speed blender that can pulverize kale with the flick of a switch? List it.

A set of crystal goblets we’ll sip out of once every 10 years? List it.

A stack of decorative dish towels that will never actually be used to dry a single dish? Put it on the list.

But over the last few years, a new trend in wedding gifting — and requesting — has emerged: cash money.

(And frankly, we’re all for it.)

But with the rising popularity and acceptability of cash gifts at weddings (though many cultures have been celebrating this way for years!) coupled with our society’s need for ultimate convenience, it makes sense that a website specifically for cash registries would appear on the scene.

Enter: Honeyfund.

Honeyfund Helps Couples with Cash Wedding Registries

Honeyfund is a free online honeymoon registry service.

While its primary focus is on honeymoon expenses, it’s been described as “crowdfunding for newlyweds,” and that’s not entirely incorrect.

In addition to honeymoon funding, couples can also register for cash gifts to help cover “big-ticket items” like a new dishwasher, a down payment on a house or simply for a nest egg to build their new married life on.

Couples can set up a free page or pay a $40 fee to upgrade to an account with more functionality and fewer ads.

With either option, couples are able to customize a wishlist and share wedding day details with their guests.

Once you create an account, you can begin adding line items to your registry. These can be as broad as “five nights at a hotel” or as specific as “facials for two.” Honeyfund suggests default categories and price ranges for each item, but you can edit the information to reflect your needs more accurately.

Stephanie Bolling, a staff writer here at The Penny Hoarder, is using Honeyfund for her upcoming wedding. She used the site to register exclusively for her honeymoon, a trip to Europe that will include stops in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Rome.

Among her asks are “airfare,” “sightseeing tours,” “dining” and “transportation.” Each category is broken up into affordable chunks, and friends and family can choose a gift ranging from $25 to $50. (Which is about what they’d end up paying for a blender or a toaster oven, right?)

Depending on how you decide to cash out (using any combination of the following) there are different fee structures in place.

If you’re looking for convenience overall, you can use PayPal or WePay to cash out contributions. If you choose this option, you’ll pay a rate of 2.8% plus 30 cents for each transaction.

The new Honeyfund Balance program allows you to cash out your funds as gift cards through the site’s network of gift card providers (which includes stores like Delta, Amazon and Bed, Bath and Beyond). This option is completely fee-free.

You could also choose offline gifting, where you would list your needs on Honeyfund, but request that guests bring financial gifts in the form of cash or checks to the wedding itself. This would eliminate the cashing out fees entirely.

No matter which method you choose, wedding guests won’t pay a penny in fees.

Traditional Wedding Registries Aren’t Entirely Out

For the couples who may still need a few household items, or those with more traditional family and friends not keen on donating money to a vacation, Honeyfund allows users to integrate a traditional, in-store and online wedding registry on the site.

Even if your main focus is on collecting enough cash to get to Jamaica, it can be helpful to give guests another option when it comes to gifting — and will help you avoid awkward interactions with guests who simply can’t stray from tradition.

Couples can create a registry at a store like Crate & Barrel or Bed, Bath & Beyond and link it directly to their Honeyfund account.

Your guests can click through, pick a gift and either ship it directly to you (depending on the store’s capabilities) or purchase it and bring it to be placed on the gift table.

Looking to make the process even smoother, Target recently announced plans to partner with Honeyfund to allow users to create or shop a registry from a single destination.

But Cash Registries Are Definitely In

In this day and age, most couples either already share a home stocked with all the colanders, sheets and soap dispensers they can fit, or are merging two separate homes into one — and deciding which set of pots and pans to ditch.

And while some people are taken aback by the concept as a whole, a cash registry can be really helpful to couples just starting out at a critical (and often pretty financially strapped) point in their lives.

Alexa Vincent, photo coordinator at The Penny Hoarder, used Honeyfund for her wedding registry back in 2015.

While she and her now-husband asked friends and family to help them pay for their honeymoon trip to the Florida Keys, the couple gave guests another choice as well.

“We also gave them the option to help with the down payment for a home if they wanted to contribute to that instead,” Vincent said.

So while it’s not exactly dishware and bathmats, it was a more concrete need that guests could help the couple pay for.

And that seems like a fair compromise all around.

I mean, snorkeling in crystal clear waters is pretty awesome, but so is having a starter home to come back to when the adventure is over.

Grace Schweizer is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

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The Top 15 Apps to Edit Your Instagram Photos and Videos Like a Pro

By now I’m sure you realize how important Instagram is for your business.

Every day your audience gets bombarded with many different pictures and videos showing up on their timelines. That’s why I’ve told you in the past that you need to write captions that drive engagement.

But nobody will read your captions if the image doesn’t capture their attention. They’ll just keep mindlessly scrolling past your post.

I’ve seen some companies hire experts in photography to help them put out better Instagram posts.

While I can applaud the effort, I also think it’s a complete waste of money. You can take your own photos without hiring a professional.

Now you can use that extra cash and apply it to other aspects of your business to focus on the newest marketing trends.

Instagram has tools allowing you to edit your photos and videos directly on their platform. Those might be okay for the average person, but your business should avoid them.

Why?

It’s all about standing out from the crowd.

All of the 800 million monthly active Instagram users have access to those editing tools. If you’re using them too, your posts will look like everyone else’s.

There are other apps available that can help make your photos stand out. But there are thousands of them out there, so it’s tough to figure out which ones are most useful.

That’s why I’ve taken the time to share with you the best 15 apps for photo and video editing. These will help you take your Instagram posts to the next level.

I’ll go through all of my favorites and show you some of the key features of each one.

1. Afterlight 2

If you’re looking for unique filters, Afterlight 2 has a huge collection of old school and vintage ones available. These are definitely an upgrade from filters that come standard with Instagram.

They also have some really cool effects and designs that allow you to add text and other typography to your images:

You can even put part of your text behind elements within your photo. This feature is perfect for businesses.

Now you can capture the attention of your followers by layering a catchy headline directly over your image as opposed to just writing a caption. This is a great opportunity for you to do something like:

advertise a sale
promote a new product
build hype for an event
run a contest
get more followers
draw attention to a link in your bio

You can download Afterlight 2 for $2.99, and that’s all you’ll ever pay for this app. They don’t have any other in-app upgrades or additional charges to access their best features.

2. Snapseed

Snapseed takes your editing effects to a whole new level. You can apply effects and filters to specific areas of your image with high precision:

They’ve got a really cool editing feature called a perspective tool. This helps you automatically adjust or correct any skewed lines in your images.

Let’s face it, a picture taken by hand won’t be 100% perfect. You might think your horizon is level or buildings are lined up properly, but that’s rarely the case.

That’s when the perspective tool can make your photos look professional.

What’s the best part about Snapseed? It’s free. It’s definitely worth checking out since there’s no risk involved.

3. Aviary Photo Editor

Aviary Photo Editor is an Adobe product. If you’ve used Adobe software and were happy with the experience, you should give this Photo Editor a try:

The editing tools on Aviary allow you to saturate colors within your photos as well as soften or sharpen areas for an effect.

Aviary also has a large collection of frames, stickers, and other overlays to embellish your images. You can even hand-draw captions across the pictures.

I like to use Aviary because of the features allowing me to fine-tune my images. With just a couple of clicks, you can eliminate blemishes or brighten shadows to make your images more lively.

Aviary saves your images to the cloud. If you have an Adobe ID, you can access your images from anywhere and edit them from any device.

This feature comes in handy if you’re taking and editing images as a team. Everything can be stored in one place.

4. Vintagio

For those of you who want to add a vintage feel to your videos, Vintagio has what you need, as the name suggests.

If you’ve got a fashion company or ecommerce store that sells clothing, this app can be useful for promoting products from bygone eras.

If you want your video to appear to be from a certain time period, their video filters can match the style of that time. That way, it’s clear to your audience that the setting of your video is not supposed to be the present day.

You can also trim and piece together different video clips with this app.

And you can change the video quality of your clips if you want to create something that looks like it’s from the 1950s.

Vintagio has great soundtracks from different eras as well. You can adjust the speed and timing and add other effects to your clips too.

Combining all these elements together will help you make a unique Instagram video.

5. Average Camera Pro

The name says it all. Average Camera Pro was created to help regular people edit photos like professionals.

Unlike other apps that just edit photos, Average Camera Pro has a built-in camera function. You can use it to take multiple pictures at the same time or set a timer for the photos.

You’d find these tools on high-quality and expensive cameras. But you can have them on your phone for just $0.99.

This camera function works best if you want to take pictures in low-light settings. Since you’re increasing the exposure time, you’ll get brighter pictures that would normally appear dark on a regular phone camera.

Sometimes when you try to brighten a really dark photo, the editing looks obvious in your final image.

But you won’t have to worry about that if you take the pictures with Average Camera Pro.

6. TiltShift

TiltShift is great for bringing focus to a specific area of an outdoor scene. So if you’ve got a business with a physical storefront, you can use this app to bring your location to life.

The effect makes your image appear as if it’s a miniature. Instagram has a tilt-shift feature built into their editing tools, but this one is far more advanced.

If you take lots of landscapes or other outdoor photos, this app is worth getting for just $1.99.

7. Superimpose

Do you want to change the background of a picture you took? Instagram doesn’t have any tools for that, so you’ll need to get the Superimpose app.

Superimpose lets you remove the background from an image.

Then, you can combine it with another picture. This is awesome from an advertising perspective.

Want to take an exotic beach photo without leaving your office?

No problem.

Check out these creative images above. Superimpose allows you to blend images together or even change an image into something unrealistic, such as a fish with the head of a chicken.

Using Superimpose as part of your arsenal of photo editing tools will make your brand stand out on Instagram. You can create images that are fun, exciting, and imaginative.

Plus, their software creates a smooth final product that’s believable. Your pictures won’t have that unprofessional crop and paste feel to them.

It’s only $1.99 to download. In no time at all, you’ll be uploading new photos to Instagram that will get your followers talking.

8. 8mm Vintage Camera

The 8mm Vintage Camera is great for shooting and editing longer videos. Now that Instagram lets you upload videos that are up to a minute long, this app is perfect for you.

You can get really cool video effects such as:

light leaks
scratches
flames flickering
dust

All of these can make your videos feel more authentic.

8mm Vintage Camera was even used in the filming of an Oscar-nominated movie.

If a professional director can use this app to get on the red carpet, you can certainly use it to edit your Instagram videos. It’s available for download for just $1.99 with some additional premium themes available as in-app purchases.

9. CrossProcess

If you love adding filters to your photos but are sick and tired of using the same ones, it’s time for an upgrade. CrossProcess has over 70 filters.

I’ve seen many businesses on Instagram using the same one or two filters over and over again.

It’s boring.

Your followers will realize pretty quickly you’re not being very original. Once this happens, they may start ignoring your posts. Or even worse, they could unfollow you.

If they aren’t following you, you won’t be able to keep them informed of other promotional information that drives engagement and gets conversions.

You can prevent this from happening by simply spicing up your photos with new filters available from CrossProcess.

10. PicFrame

Instagram allows you to upload multiple photos to one post. The only problem is you have to rely on your followers to scroll through each one.

This is not always the case.

If you want to combine multiple photos into one image, you can do it by creating a collage with PicFrame:

One of the coolest parts of this app is you can apply different filters and effects to each image within your collage as opposed to having one tone across the entire picture. That way, they can all be unique and stand out from each other.

You can also adjust the color and design patterns of your frames with this app.

If you really want to enhance your collage, PicFrame has lots of bonus features like stickers, shapes, text, and even music.

I think it’s worth the $2.99 price tag.

11. Facetune 2

If the majority of your Instagram photos contain people as opposed to just products or landscapes, you need to consider Facetune 2.

Nobody is perfect. Sometimes, we get blemishes, breakouts, or acne. After a long night of tossing and turning, everyone gets bags under their eyes.

But these imperfections shouldn’t discourage you from posing for a photo.

This app can make photos of people more flattering. Sometimes, all it takes is a slight adjustment to the lighting.

Facetune 2 also has specific filters designed for selfies. Sometimes the front-facing camera on our phones doesn’t take the best pictures, so just apply one of the filters to make up for it.

With a few easy steps, you can easily:

whiten teeth
change eye color
remove wrinkles
eliminate shine on oily skin
make dull skin appear vibrant

The Facetune 2 app is completely free, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t at least try it.

12. Tiny Planet Photos and Video

Tiny Planet lets you take images and videos with a fisheye lens effect.

This effect creates the appearance of a “tiny planet”—hence, the name.

Have you checked Instagram today? How many photos have you seen so far that look like this?

I’m willing to bet you haven’t seen any. I know I haven’t.

Get this app if you want to create images that are fun. The circular and warped photos this app creates can also be used as background images on phones, computers, or other devices.

You can suggest that to your followers.

13. Quick

Quick has really cool fonts that you can add to your photos.

They simplified the photo editing process with this app. Quick advertises that it’s designed to be used with “just a thumb.” So you won’t need to get on your computer or do anything too fancy to get great photos.

You can send your edited image straight to Instagram or other social media platforms directly from the app.

As you can see from the example above, their text overlay features are great for captioning a photo or listing a price for something on your ecommerce store.

14. DXP FREE

The whole purpose of the DXP FREE app is to create multiple exposures on one image.

As a result, your pictures will stand out. Check out these examples:

Instagram doesn’t offer such tools.

This app does require a little bit of patience and precision. You’ll need to understand the concepts of blending, or you might get a bit frustrated when you’re trying to edit.

But like with anything else, the more you use it, the easier it’ll get. Just as the name says, it’s free to download.

15. Tangent

Tangent lets you add patterns, textures, and geometric shapes to your images.

It’s another way to let your creative juices flow.

It also has some features that allow you to add framing overlays to your photos.

Tangent gives you an opportunity to express yourself. If your company has an audience that recognizes art and creativity, you’ll definitely want to use Tangent to impress your Instagram followers.

Conclusion

To captivate your Instagram followers, you’ll need to make sure your photos and videos are edited properly. That doesn’t mean you have to hire a professional editor.

There are plenty of apps available that are really easy for anyone to use. Lots of these are free of charge or only cost a couple of dollars, so they are worth a try.

Everyone with an Instagram account has access to the same filters and editing tools.

Editing your photos with another app can separate your pictures from the crowd. If you’re not sure where to find the best apps, refer to this list as a guideline.

All of these apps are unique and offer different features depending on what you’re looking for, such as collages, text overlays, face touch-ups, or vintage themes.

What types of camera effects do you like to use when you’re editing photos and videos on Instagram?

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Serenity and Personal Finance

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
– Reinhold Neibuhr

Serenity is simply the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled. I find that I feel something close to what one would call serenity after a good day hiking in a state or national park with friends or family, when I don’t have anything important or urgent bearing down on me.

Of course, there are a lot of things that interrupt that kind of serenity. General anxiety can rip it to shreds. Addictions. Marital worries. Parental worries. Social worries. Professional worries. And, yes, financial worries.

There’s this challenging interplay between serenity and personal finance. When your finances are in a bad place, your finances can erode your ability to find serenity anywhere. Financial problems looming over your head are incredibly stressful and fill even ordinary moments with a layer of underlying stress and anxiety that you basically can’t escape from.

However, as your finances slowly improve and you begin to build a financial foundation for the future, your finances actually contribute to serenity. You begin to feel a certain protection from things that once began to worry you and a lot of stress just evaporates from your life.

I firmly believe that getting your finances in order is a powerful tool for finding serenity in modern life. At the same time, there are many techniques that will help guide you toward serenity without harming your financial state.

Let’s look at a few of both.

Finding Serenity Under Stress

You really don’t need to go to some expensive weekend retreat or start going to a special class or buy a special “brain wave” headband or anything like that to find a little more serenity in your life, no matter how expensive it is. You just need to add a few very simple practices to your life.

Try to do things with intention. Whenever you do something, do it with a purpose. If you can’t give a clear, positive answer to why you’re doing something, don’t do it and find something else to do. It is a lot easier to feel happy about what you’re doing with your life if most of the actions have a meaningful purpose for you, so try to find that purpose, and if you can’t, stop with that action.

Consciously aim for the positives in life. What are the things you’ve done in everyday life that make you feel good about your life? Was it some charitable work you did? Was it when you really listened to a friend? Was it when you just gave yourself over completely to a hobby you enjoy and lost track of time doing it? Find space for those things in your life, as much as possible, even if it means discarding a few other things that you think should be important to you but really aren’t.

Start a gratitude journal. Just take a few minutes each day to think about five things in your life that you’re grateful for, things that make your life better by their mere presence. Maybe it’s something as simple as a friend’s laughter or the flavor of a cup of dark roast coffee. Whatever it is, if it makes your life better, write it down. Do this over and over again over many, many days and you’ll start to see how abundant your life really is.

Breathe. If you’re finding that you’re unhappy with the state of your life, just stop for a moment and breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Do nothing but focus on the breath for a minute or so, preferably with your eyes closed if possible. You’ll find that if you do this, things are somehow a little more manageable afterwards (because, believe it or not, this practice sets off a ton of good biochemistry in your body and mind).

Using Financial Success to Find Serenity

Of course, moving yourself down the road of financial success can also help with achieving personal serenity because getting the biggest financial worries off your back goes a very long way toward minimizing stress, and simply having financial resources in your hands eliminates many concerns about the future.

It goes further than that, though. Many of the best practices for achieving financial success also bring along with them a sense of serenity because of how they impact other areas of your life, such as how you think of yourself in relation to others in a more positive way.

Here are four examples of that.

Stop buying things you don’t actually need. If this isn’t something you really need, don’t buy it. Give it time to see if it’s a truly deep want or just a short term desire. If you can, borrow it instead of buying it. This practice not only keeps your money in your pocket, it also keeps you from accumulating lots of things in your home that you individually have less and less time for (because of the sheer number) and spend more and more time managing and organizing instead of enjoying. Go a little minimal and stop adding things to your life that you don’t have time or space for, and you’ll be improving your financial state, too.

Stop worrying about impressing people you don’t actually care about. Don’t worry about dressing to the nines to go to the grocery store. Don’t stress out about driving the nicest car because no one on the road or in the parking lot cares who you are. Don’t buy an amazing house just to impress the people who drive by, who also have no idea who you are. Don’t buy any of those things to “impress” friends and acquaintances who know you so little that they’re actually impacted by what house you live in, because those connections are pretty minor anyway. Stop worrying about what other people think of anything you do, and instead do the things that matter to you (and maybe your true core family and friends) and no one else.

Stop worrying about name brands on the stuff you buy. Name brands really don’t mean much in the big scheme of things. They’re rarely even good indicators of the true quality of an item. Buy store brand items for minor things, and for expensive things, do the homework to figure out what the best bang for the buck for that item is. You’ll often find that the best values out there aren’t the name brands you initially think of. Why is that? The name brands you initially think of are often pounded into your head by a big marketing budget, not by any sort of actual product quality. Don’t choose marketing. Choose value.

Use that saved money to eliminate debt, build an emergency fund, and start saving for life’s big goals. If you genuinely commit to those three steps, and add in a few smart money-saving tactics that simply reduce spending without reducing life quality like switching to LED light bulbs and installing weatherstripping in your home and making sure your car tires are fully inflated, you’re going to see a big drop in your monthly spending. Don’t simply start spending that money on more stuff. Spend it instead to build a financial foundation. Pay off your debts. Build up an emergency fund in your savings account so you can deal with unexpected expenses. Start saving for retirement or, if you have children, for their college education.

Final Thoughts

Almost all of us want serenity in the moment, a sense of internal peace and calmness. There are lots of little ways to grasp it for a moment or two before the flow of life carries us away from it.

It’s a little harder to find lasting serenity. One big approach for doing that is to get rid of some of the biggest sources of stress in our lives and, ideally, turn them into sources of strength. Good personal finance practices can do just that.

These tips together can help you find serenity in the moment without financial cost and can also help you build a life in which lasting serenity is a real part. Moving from an extremely shaky financial situation to a firm financial foundation can do just that.

Good luck.

The post Serenity and Personal Finance appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Are You Still in Love with Your Business?

By Dawn Berryman Are you in love with your business? Do you have the same passion and energy for your business as you did when you first started out? As with anything, it can sometimes be hard to maintain excitement and enthusiasm, especially during slow or challenging times. How do you rekindle that early business […]

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How to Talk Finances When You Want Your Love (and Money) to Last Forever

One Year Later: How We Make It as a One-Car Family in the Suburbs

A little over a year ago, my husband and I faced a decision: what to do with my old, beat-up minivan. Even though the van had been paid off for a while, it was starting to cost us more than we wanted to pay in terms of updates and repairs. I had spent around $700 on new tires and several hundred more on new brake pads in just the prior year. Since the van was worth $4,000 tops, we were growing tired of pouring money into it.

After talking it over, we started to wonder whether we could get by with just one car. It would be a bit of a challenge: We had owned two cars for our entire marriage, after all, and we have two kids who don’t always participate in the same activities. Plus, while more than half of New Yorkers get by without any car at all, we don’t live in a big city with a subway system to fall back on.

But in the end, we decided it seemed silly to have two cars since we both work (mostly) out of our home. Ultimately, that meant selling the van to a family friend for $3,500. Not only would this put $3,500 cash in our pockets, but this also meant we could quit paying for oil changes and repairs and cancel the insurance, too. Better yet, we would gain half of a two-car garage for storage and whatever else we wanted.

How We Make It Work as a One-Car Family

It’s been well over a year now, and our adventure as a one-car family has gone off mostly without a hitch. Here are some of the issues we’ve had to negotiate to make it work:

#1: It’s essential that at least one of us always works at home.

First off, without a subway or other transit system handy, our life as a one-car family wouldn’t be possible for us if we both worked outside the home.

We have our own businesses, which means that one of us is almost always here at the house during the work day. Usually it’s me, and I don’t mind being here without a car at all.

Either way, I know there’s no way we could make this work if we were to ever go back to traditional 9-5 jobs. With that in mind, having at least one of us at home is essential to our ability to remain a one-car family.

#2: We use Uber and other services in a pinch.

One of the biggest secrets to our success as a one-car family is the fact we rely on Uber and other ride-sharing services when we’re in a bind.

For example, I travel some for my work and occasionally have to get to the airport first thing in the morning. When that happens, I pay around $44 for an Uber to the airport instead of having my husband wake our kids or leaving them without a car. Then, when I arrive home, I either Uber home or have him pick me up.

Also, I used to worry about what I would do if we really needed food and my husband was gone with the car. But now that I’ve started using grocery delivery most of the time, that worry has completely disappeared. Chalk up another win for having groceries delivered instead of schlepping to the store.

On the rare occasion one of us goes out with our friends, we also use Uber or ride along with someone else instead of leaving the other person stranded.

#3: We ride bikes when we can.

Because we live near the center of our city, it’s possible to ride our bikes to some destinations as long as the weather is good. This has allowed us to ride bikes to certain events when my husband has the car – like my kid’s piano lessons or to our friend’s house across the neighborhood. We’ve also ridden bikes to birthday parties a few times when my husband had to be one place with the car and at least one of our kids had to be somewhere else.

Since there’s a gas station and convenience store right outside our neighborhood, we could also ride bikes there if we were desperate for hot dog buns or Tylenol. When my kids were younger, I don’t think I would have felt so comfortable doing this. But, it works fine now that they’re ages 6 and 8 (and almost 7 and 9, they’ll have you know).

#4: We plan to rent a car in certain situations.

While we haven’t had to rent a car yet, we know the time is coming where we will likely have to pay for a multi-day rental. If my husband drives out of state by himself to see my in-laws, for example, he would need to rent a car because it wouldn’t be okay to leave me stranded with the kids for days at a time.

And, what happens if our only car has to go into the shop for repairs? In that case, we already know we’d be on the hook for a rental while it was getting fixed.

Also, we justified keeping our minivan for far too long due to the fact you could lay the seats flat and use it to move large items. The thing is, we rarely took advantage of this outside of spring when we used our van to haul mulch. If we need a truck to haul mulch or anything else, we can always rent one or borrow one from a friend, right?

Why Being a One-Car Family Is Worth It

At this point, you’re probably wondering whether the money we save by not having a car has made all those sacrifices worth it. Paying $45 for an occasional Uber trip certainly adds up, as does grocery delivery and other services we may have to access.

The thing is, I still feel very confident that we made the right decision – financially and otherwise. Here’s why:

We saved $300 per year on auto insurance. Once we removed the minivan from our auto insurance policy, our premiums went down around $150 per six months, or $300 per year.
We no longer have to pay for license plates. Until we sold the van, we were paying around $100 per year to renew our license plates.
We eliminated the prospect of costly repair bills. The biggest problem with keeping our old van was the many “what ifs” that came with it. What if it needed more expensive repairs? Since it was an 11-year-old model and sat mostly unused, we worried a lot about how much it might cost to maintain it in the future. Now those worries are gone.

With these details in mind, I’m fairly certain we’ve saved a bundle by selling our car. The $300 we’re saving on auto insurance and the $100 we paid for plates can pay for a lot of Uber rides, and the elimination of repair bills means we won’t be out thousands of dollars to fix the van in the future. Plus, after we sold the van, we put $3,500 cash in the bank, knowing full well that the van could only be worth less and less with each passing year.

However, the best part about all of it is the peace of mind we gained. I love having one car for the simple fact it makes our lives much simpler than they were before. Now, we only have one car to clean and maintain, and we only have one oil change schedule to remember. We only have to renew the plates once each year, and we only have to worry about repair bills from one car at a time. And yes, we have more room in the garage, which is something I truly appreciate.

The Bottom Line

Can everyone share a car with their spouse? Absolutely not! When you have two adults going in different directions every day, without a subway or useful bus system to help out, sharing one car could easily become a nightmare. Still, there are plenty of instances where people could share a car, but don’t. I know, because we were those people for years until we decided to sell the old minivan.

Nowadays, I’m perfectly happy with the fact I don’t have my own car. I don’t care if people think it’s weird, or if they wonder if we’re a one-car family because we can’t afford a second one. What I crave most at this point in my life is simplicity, and having one car has definitely delivered on that front.

Holly Johnson is an award-winning personal finance writer and the author of Zero Down Your Debt. Johnson shares her obsession with frugality, budgeting, and travel at ClubThrifty.com.

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Exactly How Legal is Legal Marijuana? Here’s What You Need to Know

How to become an Isa millionaire

Saving and investing enough money to become a millionaire is quite an achievement. But these days, thanks to individual saving accounts, it is possible to build up £1 million over less time because there is no tax to pay on income or capital gains.

The Isa was introduced in 1999 when it replaced the share-focused Personal Equity Plan (Pep), which had been around since 1987, and the cash-focused Tax Exempt Special Savings Account (Tessa). It started life as a £7,000 allowance for stocks and shares, of which up to £3,000 could be used for cash; it rose above £10,000 in 2010, and in April 2017, the new Isa allowance went up to £20,000 per year.

Moneywise's First 50 Funds for beginners

The number of Isa millionaires is estimated to be up to 1,000 people, though the exact figure has not been revealed. However, that number is set to increase in the future. That’s because the value of Isa allowances has been going up and there has been a nine-year global bull market run. As a result, the time needed to accumulate that first million has never been shorter for those investors fortunate enough to be able to put away their full allowance.

How long does it take?

In this feature we’ll consider how long it would have taken an investor starting in the depths of the financial crisis in 2008 to become an Isa millionaire, and how long it could take now, assuming no further changes to annual allowances.

Becoming an Isa millionaire requires a combination of dedicated saving habits and decent investment returns. So how should would-be millionaires structure and manage their portfolio in order to reach their goal? And how can they balance the search for growth with capital preservation?

Ben Yearsley, director at Shore Financial Planning, has calculated that for investors starting now, investing £20,000 a year and assuming growth of 7% each year (after charges), it will take 22 years to become an Isa millionaire. "You will have a pot of £1.04 million at the end," he adds.

Turn First 50 Funds into a potent portfolio

If we assume an 8% growth rate, that will knock almost two years off the total time needed and save £40,000 worth of contributions in the process. And a 10% investment growth rate will reduce the time needed to just 18 years and save another £40,000. However, Yearsley argues, it’s better to be realistic, use the 7% figure and allow 22 years.

"The simple truth is that the higher the growth rate, the quicker you will reach the magic target and the less money you will have to invest to get there," says Mr Yearsley. "However, that doesn’t mean you should have a portfolio all pointed the same way; you do need a balance of styles, sectors and countries in your portfolio to even out risk." He adds that if your target is long-term growth, then it would be worth avoiding bonds and sticking predominantly, if not exclusively, to equities.

Research, set and rebalance

Mr Yearsley says: "Spend the time researching the best investments prior to investing, then generally don’t touch the portfolio, except maybe to do a bit of rebalancing each year. You don’t want the entire portfolio performing in the same way at the same time (i.e. going up and down in synchrony). If it does that, you may as well just buy one fund. As long as you know why you’ve bought a fund and what its aim is, you can sit and be patient if it does lag behind."

For someone who started out in the depths of the 2008 financial crisis, it would have taken slightly longer to become an Isa millionaire. Mr Yearsley has crunched the numbers for someone who invested the full Isa allowance on 1 January each year, starting in 2008. He calculates that in total, they will have invested £110,560 so far, which will have grown to £173,159 if invested in the FTSE All-Share index (figures to 21 December 2017). From the present time onwards, he assumes the fund grows by 7% per year and the full Isa allowance is invested each year, so 1 January 2018 sees an investment of £20,000. He concludes that from here on it will take 15 years of Isa allowance invested, which equals another £300,000, bringing the total investment to £410,560.

"Assuming 7% growth, by 1 January 2033 you will have a pot worth £1,015,512," says Mr Yearsley. It would therefore take 25 years to become a millionaire in this scenario. Andrew Craig, the author of How to Own the World and founder of the website Plain English Finance, agrees that "slow and steady" is one way of becoming an Isa millionaire. The other possibility is to be "extremely lucky, or extremely clever, with a far more aggressive approach", he argues. This would involve adopting more of a "trader" approach in your Isa account and turning your portfolio over, cutting losers and running winners.

Spot the dog – deceptively poor performing funds named and shamed

"One version of this approach is to seek out a few small companies and hope that one or more of them is a “ten-bagger” [an investment that returns more than 10 times your initial capital] or better," says Mr Craig. "These are actually more common than many people think. They can be found in sectors such as tech and biotech, but also in far more sober-seeming sectors – just look at Asos or FeverTree as examples of companies playing in perfectly normal and understandable sectors of the economy that have made investors wonderful returns in recent years."

He argues that for those who are going to try to play this stock-picking game, "it is imperative to arm yourself with the necessary valuation skills, become a voracious reader and really try to think with an investor’s hat on when you move through the world". He also suggests that you should put together your own well-thought-out checklist of things a company needs to have before you make an investment. "This is certainly what many of the best small-cap fund managers do, and some of them have made stellar returns."

Smaller company potency

To illustrate the potency of smaller companies, Mr Craig cites an academic paper by London Business School professors Elory Dimson and Paul Marsh about small-cap returns. They found that since 1955, the Numis Smaller Companies index (NSCI), which measures the performance of smaller quoted UK companies, has achieved an annualised return of 15.1%. That’s 3.4% more a year than the FTSE All-Share index. A £1 investment in the NSCI made at its starting point in 1955 would be worth £6,067 by the end of 2016. This compares to £968 if £1 had been invested in the FTSE AllShare over the same period.

Investing in smaller companies is in fact the favoured strategy of Britain’s self-declared first Isa millionaire. In 2003, John Lee became the first person to come out to the press as an Isa millionaire in the UK. Previously a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s, he is now Lord Lee of Trafford and a Liberal Democrat. He became an Isa millionaire by investing the maximum amount that could be put into Isas and their predecessors, Peps, each year, and reinvesting the dividends.

He says: "In 1987, when Nigel Lawson introduced the Pep, I recognised the tax-free savings opportunity." He says the initial problem was that he couldn’t find an investment manager who would allow him to choose his own stocks rather than opting for a ready-made portfolio, "and I always wanted to select my own stocks".

He likes companies with strong brands and conservative management, favouring companies run or started by families. He looks for businesses with low levels of debt and high levels of cash. It is important that they continuously increase their dividends, because dividends tell us that "the company has got the cash to pay"; it is also an "indication of what the board directors think will be a dividend they can pay the following year, as most companies sensibly think ahead and don’t want to cut the dividend". And finally, the dividend yield "provides another prop to the share price".

Lord Lee continues: "I’m not an early-stage investor. I don’t back start-ups, but go for businesses which are already established, already profitable and already paying dividends; they can be Aim stocks, but not what I call hope-and-pray stocks." His preferred kind of company has moved from the main market across to the Aim market. Another important consideration for him is that the directors need to have "skin in the game", investing personally in the stock they are running.

Lord Lee’s Aim holdings include Christie Group, which provides professional services such as surveying to businesses, Lok’nStore, which provides self-storage space for businesses, and Anpario, a firm that makes natural feeding additives for pigs and poultry. Also in his Isa is Vianet, which provides monitoring systems to track beer consumption for pubs.

Financial advice: The good, the bad and the ugly

Another stock he holds is Treatt, a supplier of flavour, fragrance and cosmetics ingredients, based in Bury St Edmunds. Treatt represents one third of the value of his Isa: "I believe in holding good shares and not taking profits," he says.

When Lord Lee declared that he had £1 million in his Isa, he says he had invested about £126,000 of original investment into the wrapper to achieve £1 million through capital growth and dividend reinvestment.

Growth and capital preservation

When asked about whether he looks for growth or capital preservation, Lord Lee says: "I always believe you can achieve both. The key is buying at the right time at a modest valuation." His best year in terms of investment return was 2003, with 44 per cent capital performance, and his worst year was 2008 when the financial crisis hit and he lost 42 per cent of his portfolio value. "But during that period I bought a lot," he adds; and when the market rebounded in 2009, his portfolio appreciated by 28%, with a further 29 per cent uplift in 2010.

Something he does now, which he says he should have done earlier, is to operate a 20% stop-loss order, which limits the extent of falls before a holding is sold. "Face up to poor decisions and apply a 20% stop-loss; there’s nothing worse than keeping a loss-maker in your portfolio." He explains that what’s worse than the financial loss is the fact that keeping losers is "bad for your morale, because every time you look at your portfolio or hear the name of the company it draws blood and sucks away confidence". However, he recommends letting profitable companies have their run.

Hidden fund costs exposed following rule change

He adds: "Understand what the company does, and ignore minor price movements." He also recommends looking for optimism in the company chairman’s comments. And finally, he advises: "Don’t worry too much about the macro outlook, about North Korea or Trump. Focus on a particular company, and be prepared to hold it for at least five years. Don’t chop and change your portfolio – don’t treat the stock market like a casino."

An adventurous fund portfolio for would-be millionaires

Ben Yearsley says: "Without selecting funds specifically for capital preservation, I have included complementary funds in the portfolio that have different characteristics. For example, the First State Global Listed Infrastructure fund is nowhere near as racy as say Lazard Emerging Markets. However, over time it should deliver excellent returns, but in a lower-risk manner, as the underlying investments are typically key assets that have to be used and the underlying income they provide is often inflation-linked."

This article first appeared on our sister webstie Money Observer

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