A slow shift in culture is changing the way funeral homes operate and cutting into their bottom lines.For the first time, cremations are more popular than traditional burials and some say it could be a killer for some smaller businesses.“If you’re not doing enough volume and half of them go to cremation, you’re probably in trouble," said Michael Bolock, funeral director at Bolock Funeral Home. "So for smaller places, it can be a problem."For decades, [...]
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الخميس، 1 مارس 2018
Here’s How Commuter Costs Stack Up in Redfin’s Top 10 Transit Systems
Depending on where you live and work, taking public transportation can help save you time and money. But not all transit systems are created equal.
Real estate site Redfin recently released its 2018 list of the top 10 cities for public transit. The cities were ranked using Redfin’s “Transit Score,” a trademarked indicator of the convenience of using public transportation in a given location.
Using a scale from 0 to 100, the top 10 cities were ranked as followed:
- New York — 85.3
- San Francisco — 80.4
- Boston — 72.6
- Washington, D.C. — 68.5
- Philadelphia — 66.8
- Chicago — 65.0
- Seattle — 59.6
- Minneapolis — 57.6
- Baltimore — 57.2
- Honolulu — 57.2
According to the transit score methodology, scores between 50 and 69 indicate areas that are good for transit with many nearby public transportation options. Scores between 70 and 89 indicate cities that are excellent for transit, where public transportation is convenient for most trips.
What wasn’t factored into the scoring was the cost of the commute.
Being the Penny Hoarders we are, we couldn’t help but look into the public transportation fares in the 10 cities on Redfin’s list. We specifically focused on the cost of a monthly transit pass, because it’s generally beneficial for regular commuters to choose multi-day options rather than paying the fare for each individual trip they take.
Here’s how the cities stacked up financially:
- Boston — $55 (or $84.50 for additional subway or commuter rail options)
- Honolulu — $70
- Washington D.C. — $70 (for four weekly Metrobus passes)
- Baltimore — $72
- San Francisco — $75 (or $94 for commuters needing to travel between BART stations)
- Minneapolis — $90 (or $65 for monthly passes to travel outside of rush hour time frames)
- Seattle — $90
- Philadelphia — $96
- Chicago — $105
- New York — $121
Commuters in our nation’s capital pay the least per month of the top 10 metros. Though Washington D.C.’s Transit Score in the top 5 and just shy of an “excellent” rating, it has dropped 2.2 points since 2016’s rankings.
Redfin Washington, D.C., agent John Marcario said the transit system’s decision to reduce service and shut down certain lines for repair has caused frustration among riders but that D.C. home buyers are still paying a premium to live near a Metro station.
Commuters in Boston pay the least per month of the top 10 metros — but only for commuters just taking local bus routes. Those who regularly travel via subway or commuter rail pay more.
Though New York had the highest Redfin Transit Score (despite some New Yorkers’ transit horror stories), commuters in the Big Apple pay the most for monthly transit fare of the 10 cities.
Still, $121 a month can be a steal compared to paying to have a car.
According to Experian, the average new car loan payment was $502 in the third quarter of 2017, and the average new car lease payment was $412. The average used-car payment was $365.
And that’s not factoring in the cost of insurance, gas, parking or other expenses associated with owning a car.
Of course, not all areas are conducive to taking public transportation. To get more insight on your city, Redfin’s Walk Score lets you plug in your location and find out whether it’s great for taking public transportation, walking or biking — or whether you’d likely need to depend on driving a car.
Nicole Dow is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She commutes to work via public transit.
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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Banking on the go: Tap into the latest ways to spend and save
Make the most of mobile banking via your smartphone. From app-only accounts to budget and money-saving tools, managing your money has got a whole lot easier.
There is no doubt that the smartphone has changed our lives forever – from the way in which we communicate to the way we shop. But, until recently, the impact of the smartphone upon our financial lives was limited.
This is rapidly changing. According to research from financial services provider Sun Life, the use of budgeting tools and apps among the over-50s has tripled in three years – from one in 25 using such tools in 2015 to one in nine in 2017.
This, coupled with big banks’ sluggish adoption of smartphone banking, plus the often poor quality of these digital experiences, has led to a proliferation of smaller fintech (financial technology) start-up brands storming the marketplace.
Moneywise explores what six of these challengers do – Cleo, Monese, Monzo, Plum, Revolut, and Starling – and how they could change the way you manage your money in future.
App-only current accounts
If you’ve ever overspent thinking there was more in your account than was the case, free app-only banks, such as Monzo or Starling, might be for you.
Monzo, which launched a prepaid card in 2015 and gained its banking licence in April 2017, and Starling, which launched in July 2016, both have a simple premise: sign up to their current account, spend on your debit card, get an instant notification of spending via the app and an immediate true reflection of your bank balance.
Both apps also break down your spending habits into categories, making budgeting more intuitive, so it is easier to figure out where you might be overindulging. Monzo, for example, recently introduced ‘Pots’, which allows users to earmark cash, effectively ringfencing the money from day-to-day spending.
Valerio Magliulo, product and partnerships manager at Monzo, explains: “Pots gives you the ability to set money aside within your main Monzo account. It allows you to save and manage all your money from within the Monzo app.”
Starling has a similar feature called ‘Goals’.
With Monzo-to-Monzo payments, you can even transfer money through the app, using just the phone number of one of your contacts if they also have the app.
Starling, meanwhile, has created a marketplace within its app infrastructure to offer financial products from other companies.
Anne Boden, Starling’s chief executive, explains: “This marketplace ‘app store’ enables our customers to view and select other financial services solutions provided by selected third parties.
“This gives customers transparency and choice – something which the big banks have kept from them for too long.”
Consumers are also being drawn to Monzo and Starling because of their international nature. Neither bank charges for using its debit card worldwide and while Monzo has recently imposed fees on cash withdrawals abroad, Starling has kept its cash withdrawal rates at zero, making the debit card a Moneywise Best Buy for overseas spending.
As both Monzo and Starling have UK banking licences, up to £85,000 saved with them is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
Banking without borders
So eye-watering are the international transaction fees on traditional current accounts that fintech firms have popped up to remove the cost of moving money across borders.
Apps, such as Monese and Revolut, which both launched in 2015, are designed so that consumers are not restricted to where their current account can be used and which currency it works in.
Revolut says users can open a current account in as little as 60 seconds and begin spending, withdrawing and transferring money internationally in more than 130 currencies without incurring fees.
Revolut has also capitalised on the boom in interest for cryptocurrencies, such as the Bitcoin.
Nikolay Storonsky, chief executive of Revolut, explains: “We introduced cryptocurrency support following the huge number of requests we received from our users. Following months of development work, Revolut customers can now buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency.”
Meanwhile, Monese, which provides similar ‘borderless banking’, gives those who struggle for access to banking services in foreign countries the ability to bank without a credit rating or even a local address.
Norris Koppel, chief executive of Monese, says: “We’re on a mission to provide a helpful service to a lot of people who struggle with traditional banks because of their outdated paper-based processes and tech limitations. We’re empowering more people to easily bank like a local at home or abroad – wherever they decide to live.”
However, neither Monese or Revolut have a banking licence, which means cash isn’t protected by the FSCS. Monese doesn’t want a banking licence, while Revolut is awaiting a European Banking licence. Once it has this, customer funds will be covered up to €100,000 by the European Deposit Protection scheme.
Another drawback is that if you hold money in your Monese account, you’ll be charged £4.95 a month. Revolut’s ‘standard’ service is free to use including a UK current and an EU account, the ability to trade in cryptocurrencies plus £200 of free cash machine withdrawals a month. However, the company does charge £6.99 a month for its ‘premium’ version of the account.
Algorithmic tools
If traditional budgeting and money saving is too much hassle, you can let an app save money for you. Take it further still, and you don’t even need an app. Plum and Cleo don’t have their own apps; their services are fully integrated into the Facebook Messenger app, where they act as algorithmic middle men for your finances.
To get started on Plum, for instance, you sign up on its website and get redirected to a Facebook Messenger chat box. A ‘robot’ will begin asking you questions about your financial aims. After ascertaining your goals, the robot will then analyse your spending habits and begin to automatically draw money from your current account at a level it believes you can afford.
Plum uses financial firm Mangopay to take this money, which is then ringfenced and stored either with Barclays or with peer-to-peer lender RateSetter. With Barclays, you won’t accrue interest, but with RateSetter you can earn 3% with its Innovative Finance Isa. Plum says this means if Barclays, Mangopay, or itself goes bankrupt, you won’t lose your money. However, your money isn’t ringfenced if RateSetter were to get into difficulty as it is not FSCS protected.
Daniella Camilleri, spokesperson for Plum, explains: “Plum is different in a few ways from most other personal finance apps. We focus on helping you save rather than tracking what you spend. We all know that we spend too much on food and coffee, but that doesn’t really help. The main idea with Plum is that we will find ways for you to save without you having to change your lifestyle.
She adds: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is also a key differentiating factor, as the fi rst AI savings chatbot is at the heart of our product. AI allows us to offer a bespoke experience, and soon that will become expected.”
Cleo can also be used for budgeting and auto-saving, as well as to send money abroad, make person-to-person payments, and even to switch utilities. Intuitive charity donations for spare change is a feature the app is looking to add.
Barney Hussey-Yeo, its chief executive, says: “One of the big draws of Cleo is that she’s a daily and habitual relationship. People interact with her as they would a friend, and that’s often the feedback we get: she makes dealing with your money stress-free because she’s responsive, personable, and superhumanly intelligent with regards to your finances.”
As with Plum, Cleo doesn’t have a banking licence. It uses Mangopay to transfer money, while any savings are stored with Barclays too. Again, it has no FSCS protection.
“I use my Monzo accounts for savings too”
Monzo user Eden, 25, a teacher from Croydon, says: “My old bank didn’t offer me any tools with which to manage my finances. I essentially used it to store my money.
“My friends had Monzo cards and the ease which they could send and receive money, see what they paid for and where and when they paid for it made me want one too.
“Monzo allows me to manage my finances as I go about my day. I use my Monzo current account for all my main transactions, and its Pots feature as a savings account and holiday fund.
“This year, I want to start saving for a house deposit and have enough in the holiday fund to go to Canada for five weeks in the summer.”
‘Plum has helped motivate me to save’
Aaron Jackman (pictured above), a 35-year-old vicar from Saddleworth, Greater Manchester, explains how Plum has motivated him:
“My biggest savings hurdle is what my wife and I call the X-Factor. Basically, anything we don’t plan for, such as the car getting scratched, parking fines, property damage, and friends inviting themselves round to stay at short notice.
“Plum has helped motivate me to save – and to save often – no matter how little for these life events. I feel like Plum is cheering me on as I aim to reach my goals.
“It also manages to successfully integrate the world of apps with banking. As a self-professed ‘app lover’ who hates budgeting, I have found that the interface is very fresh and current, and its conversation style is appealing.
“I feel that I can trust Plum, despite the fact that I haven’t met anyone face to face. Perhaps it’s something to do with the regular updates that I receive, the use of emojis and a light, engaging conversation style.
“Plus, Plum uses the Facebook Messenger app to communicate with customers. As I am already familiar with this way of communicating with friends, it wasn’t such a leap to have this conversation with a company.”
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Here’s what happens to your pension if your employer goes to the wall
When big companies such as Carillion or BHS go to the wall, there is understandable concern about the jobs of the many people working for such firms.
However, there are likely to be many more people – former employees as well as existing ones – worrying about whether their pension is at risk. Insolvencies raise some crucial questions for people generally, about how safe their company pensions are and what happens if their employer goes under, leaving the pension fund short of cash.
Pensions in peril
At this point it is worth mentioning that some pension schemes are affected by a company insolvency and others are not.
The newspaper headlines tend to be about salary-related pensions (often known as defined benefit pensions). These are more traditional pension schemes, where the amount you get depends on how much you earned and how long you worked.
In effect they are ‘pensions with a promise attached’. As long as the company you work or have worked for remains in business and still puts money into its pension scheme, your pension will continue to be paid as promised. But problems arise if a firm becomes insolvent at a time when there isn’t enough money in the fund to meet all its pension promises.
In contrast, the newer ‘pot of money’ pensions (known as defined contribution pensions) are not affected if your employer goes to the wall. This is because the money is held for you either in a personal pension product with an insurance company or in a separate trust, so the value of your pension is unaffected.
The good news is that big company collapses make the headlines precisely because they are unusual. In most cases, firms keep going from one year to the next, and pensions go on being paid as promised to millions of people every month.
To give a sense of perspective, in 2017 there were around 1.3 million private sector workers still building up rights in private sector salary related schemes, 4.9 million workers under pension age with past rights but not building up new rights, and 4.2 million pensioner members. In total, over 10.4 million people were either already receiving such a pension or due to receive one.
In contrast, the number of people who have been picked up by the Pension Protection Fund (which steps in when a firm goes bust with an under-funded pension scheme) stands at around 0.4 million, a figure that includes those rescued by the Financial Assistance Scheme, the precursor to the PPF. In short, the number of people who are not getting their full pensions is around 4 per cent of the number of people who have ongoing entitlements to salary-related company pensions.
The key to whether your salary-related pension will be paid in full or not is whether your company continues to trade and whether it can put enough money into its pension scheme to meet future pension promises. Pension costs have risen in recent years as we live longer and the returns on pension fund investments have fallen. Both these factors have put pressure on pension scheme funding, which is why most pension schemes now have a deficit.
Solid safety net
Every three years a pension scheme’s assets and liabilities are revalued, and the employer and the pension scheme trustees have to agree a ‘recovery plan’ to deal with any deficit.
If the employer becomes insolvent while there is a significant deficit in the fund, the assets of the scheme are generally passed over to the PPF, which then pays out pensions to scheme members.
Under PPF rules, those already over pension age at the time of the insolvency should get 100 per cent of their pension, while those under pension age get 90 per cent. However, the PPF rules that govern increases in pensions each year to account for inflation are often less generous than the rules of the original schemes, so members may get smaller annual increases once their pensions are in the PPF. Moreover, there is a cap on pension payments to very high earners.
Most companies are likely to last long enough to deliver on their pension promises. For those that do not, the PPF is a well-funded and robust safety net that should provide some peace of mind the next time the headlines are full of doom and gloom about company pensions.
This article was first published on our sister publication Money Observer
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How to Accelerate the Growth of Your Net Worth
David writes in:
As per your suggestion I have been tracking my net worth over the past year and it has gone upward (good!) in an almost perfectly straight line (bad!). Based on your articles and my own intuition, shouldn’t it be accelerating and going upward in a parabola shape?
Assuming that there is no change in a person’s spending or professional income and assuming that they are spending less than they earn and doing something productive with it, then over a long period of time, yes, that person’s net worth should start to accelerate. As that person pays off debt, he or she will be able to devote more and more money each month to paying off the balance of debts and less and less to paying off interest. Eventually, that debt is gone and that money goes toward investments, which start to grow on their own as the returns on your investments are reinvested and begin to earn on their own…
That’s not happening in David’s case, though. Why not?
Without knowing more about David’s story, I can’t 100% diagnose exactly what’s happening, but there are usually a few things going on when a person is expecting their net worth to grow rapidly and it’s not.
Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on with David’s story, and perhaps, along the way, uncover how anyone can accelerate their net worth growth.
Are You Calculating Net Worth Correctly?
Calculating net worth is really simple. All you do is add up the value of all of your assets – your home, your cars, your valuable possessions, the balances of your checking and savings and investment accounts – and subtract from that the amount of all of your debts – your student loans, your mortgage, your car loans, and so on. Easy enough, right?
The trick, of course, is making sure that you’re covering everything in this calculation and calculating them accurately. For example, if you own your own home, getting an accurate read on the value of that building can be tricky. You can rely on tools like Zillow to give you an estimate, but it’s imperfect. The same goes for your car – it’s a ballpark estimate at best and your car is constantly depreciating to boot.
My solution? I simply calculate my net worth once every three months, attempting to get a fresh new estimate on our home value and the value of our cars. I’ve been doing this for more than ten years, and aside from a couple of bumpy quarters, we’ve always beaten the previous quarter, often matching the percentage growth of the previous quarter.
Are You Still Spending Less Than You Earn?
If you’re sure that you’re calculating your net worth correctly, you need to move on to some bigger questions, like whether or not you’re still spending less than you earn. If your net worth is only going up at a slow rate – or going down – then the culprit is likely that you’re spending almost as much as you bring in (or more).
If you want your net worth to grow, you have to be spending less than you earn. If you want it to grow at any sort of impressive rate, you have to be spending a lot less than you earn. There’s no magic trick. There’s no secret. If you want to build wealth – and net worth is about as good of a measure of personal wealth as there is – you have to spend substantially less than you earn.
Figure out what you’re spending If you’re not sure whether you’re actually doing that or not… well, you’ve uncovered the first big problem! Sit down for a moment and figure out exactly how much income you brought home in the last month, then look at your bank statements and your credit card statements and see how much you’re spending over that same period. If those numbers are pretty close to each other, your net worth isn’t going to be growing very quickly at all.
The truth is that if you want to see big long-term changes in your financial state, you’re going to have to do something different than that. There are a lot of approaches to this age old problem.
Start a budget. Budgeting can be a pretty intimidating thing for most people, as it involves having to categorize all of the spending that you do and then use that data to set healthy spending targets for all of the different spending areas in your life. Thankfully, there are a number of apps out there that make this easy.
My favorite for years has been You Need a Budget 4th Edition, which does a splendid job of helping people enter expenses categorize them, and then use those results to make a useful spending plan for the month to come. They also offer a cloud-based version.
Another option is Mint, which does a good job of syncing with all of your accounts and providing a singular view of your finances, but often incorporates “offers” into your financial views that can guide you to some less-than-optimal spending choices. Ignore those and Mint is a great tool.
Quicken is the “grandaddy” of these types of software packages and is probably the most feature-rich of the lot.
I don’t have a strong recommendation among them aside from saying that You Need a Budget has always met my needs well when I outgrew my own homemade do-it-yourself spreadsheet.
Put a strong cap on your non-essential spending. Once you’ve assembled a budget using your real spending data, the key thing that it provides for you is some guidance on where your money is actually going. In truth, it tends to go into two areas – essential spending and non-essential spending. Most of your cuts are going to come from the non-essential side, and it won’t be easy.
This is where frugality pops in. Frugality is all about getting the maximum value for your dollar, no matter how or where you use it. When you start putting caps on your spending, you’ll have to start looking for more effective ways to get the things you enjoy in life. Try exploring store brand versions of the things you ordinarily buy. Seek out free and low cost hobbies, particularly alternate versions of the things you already do, like checking out books from the library instead of using the bookstore.
What About Your Income?
If you look at the question of “spending less than you earn” from the other side of the coin, you’ll recognize that your income also plays a vital role in things. The more you earn, after all, the easier it becomes to spend less than you’re bringing in and the easier it is to have a nice gap between the two numbers. If you increase your income without increasing your spending, suddenly you have a lot more money with which to pay down debts and invest for the future and your net worth is going to take off like a rocket ship.
Of course, improving your income isn’t as easy as flipping a switch. There are really two ways to improve your income: improve your hourly rate for the time you’re currently working or work more hours.
Improving your hourly rate This centers around moving forward in your current career, whether that comes in the form of a raise at your current job, a promotion in your current workplace, or a new job entirely. Each of those opportunities requires a different path.
Getting a raise If you have a few good performance reviews in your pocket and you can point to projects that you helped bring to a successful conclusion, you’re probably ready for this step. If not, work on really nailing a performance review or two.
Once you have a clear paper trail of success, sit down with your supervisor and work out a plan that will lead you to getting a significant raise beyond merely your typical annual cost of living raise. In many workplaces, this might take the form of an extra jump in a standardized pay grid, for example. Don’t go in with the approach that this raise should just be handed to you – instead, look for what you can do to make this raise easily justifiable for your boss, as he or she is likely to have to justify it to their boss, too. This plan might involve more education, another good performance review, or some other standard that you and your supervisor can agree upon.
Getting a promotion This varies quite a lot depending on the internal mechanisms for promotion in your workplace, but you need to make it your objective to make sure you hit every requirement needed for that promotion. This is something you can start on today – identify the promotion you want and start hammering out the things you need to have to move into that better position.
Getting a new job This centers around two things: bolstering your resume so that you appear to be a good candidate for the job you desire and building relationships with people who might be able to help you get that new job. Start by looking at job listings for the type of job you’d like to have and then make it your goal to perfectly match those requirements. At the same time, start building relationships with other people in your field, both in your current workplace and in your city or local area. Are there any professional groups or professional meetings you can start attending and getting involved with?
The other alternative, of course, is to work more hours, whether that takes the form of a part time job or a side hustle. Both paths lead toward more income, but at the cost of hours that you could be spending on other things.
Has Your Spending Level Changed?
If your net worth is staying level as you’re paying down debt, then there must be some sort of change going on in your spending habits elsewhere. What exactly are you doing with your money?
One of the biggest temptations that people face as they move through their financial lives is handling lifestyle inflation. When you have a few extra dollars in your checking account, it’s so easy to just spend it on something on the spur of the moment – a cup of coffee, a little treat, a meal at a restaurant.
The trick, of course, is that if you do it once or twice or three times in short order, it goes from being a treat to being a normal routine. Your day starts with that $5 latte. Going out to eat or grabbing takeout becomes the norm, rather than making a simple meal at home.
At that point, the more expensive routine becomes the normal routine and the baseline cost of your life just went up.
If you find that you’re barely making ends meet, especially after just receiving a raise, look for instances of lifestyle inflation. What things do you do routinely that you didn’t do a few years ago? What things do you do routinely that have a less expensive alternative? What things do you buy routinely that have a less expensive alternative?
Explore those alternatives. Look for ways to wind back the clock on your lifestyle inflation. Try eliminating, cutting back on, or finding alternatives for those things you’ve uncovered. You may just find that they’re not really contributing all that much to your life, but they are contributing to your financial difficulties.
Are You Doing Something Smart with the Excess?
Another reason that your net worth might not be accelerating is that you’re not doing anything smart with the difference between what you earn and what you spend. If that money is just sitting in a checking account somewhere, it’s not going to help you accelerate the growth of your net worth. Instead, try these approaches.
Maintain a reasonably sized emergency fund. You should have some cash set aside for emergencies, but it should be just a reasonable amount – somewhere around one month of living expenses for your family for each dependent you have. Having this cash on hand will greatly minimize the negative impact on your finances from unexpected events.
Pay off your debts in a reasonable and logical fashion. The most sensible approach to paying off your debts is to make minimum payments on all of your debts, then the largest possible extra payment on whichever debt has the highest interest rate. This will ensure that you’re minimizing the amount of interest you owe next month.
Once you have your high interest debts (everything over 10% interest) paid off, start contributing to your other goals. Put some money aside for retirement each paycheck, whether in the 401(k) or 403(b) plan at work or in your own Roth IRA. Don’t get overly stressed about what particular investment to choose – just choose the Target Retirement Fund closest to the year in which you’ll turn 65. That’s easy enough.
The best part? The money you put aside for retirement will slowly accelerate as the investments earn a dividend and then that dividend is rolled right back into the investment, meaning next time it’ll earn a little more dividend… and then a little more… and then a little more!
If you make those moves in order without accumulating any new debt, you’ll find that your net worth should be accelerating in the right direction.
Are You Doing All of These Things Consistently?
The true key to financial success isn’t doing all of these things once. It’s doing all of these things consistently over an extended period of time – years and decades. Spend less than you earn. Invest the difference by building up an emergency fund, then paying off high interest debt, then investing for the future. If you’re doing that over and over again, every quarter, every year, every decade, your net worth will accelerate.
The key is consistency. Automate as much of this as you can. Set up an automatic contribution to your emergency fund. Set up an automatic contribution to your 401(k) or 403(b) or Roth IRA. Pay as many of your bills as automatically as you can. Set aside some money automatically into your savings each month so that you’ll make a big extra payment on your highest interest debt. The key is to never give yourself a chance to make a dumb spending move.
You can carry that thinking forward into moves like cutting up your credit card (or at least hiding it away), deleting your credit card number from online accounts, and choosing to simply avoid places where you might spend money during your leisure time.
Taken together, those steps will automatically ensure that you’re spending less money and putting those extra dollars into smarter places.
Final Thoughts
The individual steps needed to make your net worth take off like a rocket aren’t hard. The trick is actually making them happen in your life, and doing lots of them at once. It’s the people who manage to succeed at pulling off several of those simple steps at once that manage to see great results when it comes to their net worth, and they begin to quickly see the kind of acceleration promised by the power of compound interest.
You’ll see it for yourself with just a little more focus on making smart choices with your spending and then putting that extra money aside for your future.
Good luck!
The post How to Accelerate the Growth of Your Net Worth appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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Are Alternative Health and Beauty Treatments Worth It? Here’s How to Tell
Or does it?
Every family has its share of home remedies to deal with minor illnesses or injuries. My grandmother always put butter on first-degree burns to stop the sting.
It turns out Grandma was wrong.
According to the University of Rochester Medical Center, applying greasy products to burns traps heat and slows its release from the skin.
Today, hundreds of over-the-counter products on the market promise to fix myriad cosmetic and health issues.
They’re advertised on social media and television, in magazines and even sold by home-based sales consultants.
But for every legitimate ointment, lotion or potion, there are dozens of health and wellness scams that promise results they can’t deliver.
So how do you know which products work and which ones are just hype — or worse, harmful?
Even Water Can Be Dangerous
It’s hard to deny the benefits of drinking water to stay hydrated and healthy.
Clean tap water works perfectly well, but if bottled or filtered water is more your jam, that’s fine, too.
Municipal tap water is heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and bottled water by the Food and Drug Administration, so what you drink comes down largely to a matter of choice.
However, companies like Live Water and Tourmaline Spring sell expensive, untreated water they claim promotes better health than ordinary water.
But Live Water has a disclaimer on its site that says its health claims haven’t been evaluated by the FDA, and it recommends that you “consult your health care provider before making a decision to switch your drinking water source.”
Meanwhile, studies show untreated groundwater could be contaminated or exceed the maximum contaminant level allowed in drinking water by the FDA.
So, drinking untreated water isn’t just costly. It could end up making you sick.
Not all wellness products on the market could cause you harm. But when you’re talking about your health, the margin for error is pretty narrow.
Thinking Outside the Health and Wellness Treatment Box
Many people use non-mainstream medical products or treatments without, or in addition to, conventional medical intervention to prevent or alleviate health problems.s.
Non-mainstream options include homeopathy, aromatherapy, acupuncture and reflexology.
People also spend a lot of money on creams, teas, supplements and other products that promise to make them look younger, slim down or deal with other cosmetic or health concerns.
According to the Global Wellness Institute, the global wellness industry was a $3.72 trillion market in 2015, the latest year the institute studied.
People spent the most money — $999 billion — on beauty and anti-aging treatments, followed by healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss.
Consequently, these areas are particularly ripe for false claims. In fact, scams involving health, fitness and beauty are so prevalent that the Federal Trade Commission devotes an entire section of its website to protecting consumers.
“As much as we would all like magic bullets to cure or prevent disease, there are none,” Linda Ruescher, master trainer Self-Management Resource Center, said in an interview with The Penny Hoarder.
“Late-night and weekend infomercials feed conspiracy theories that the medical establishment exists solely to make money, that they are invested in keeping people sick,” says Ruescher. “The newest diet book, supplement or health program is touted as a simple miracle cure that ‘they don’t want you to know about.’”
Before you spend money on a new health or wellness product, Ruescher suggests you “put your emotions and conspiracy theories aside and bring your brain to the table.”
When deciding whether to invest in an alternative health or medical treatment, ask yourself these three questions first.
Note: This information is not intended as medical advice. Please consult a physician or other health-care provider to discuss any medical issue or condition you may have.
1. Should I Risk It?
If the product or treatment you’re considering could jeopardize your health or make a medical issue worse, the risk is never worth it.
On the other hand, if the impact will be minimal if the product fails to produce the results you’re looking for, it may be worth trying.
“Someone who’s suffering from chronic pain has a whole host of options available to them before they should do back surgery,” Charles Mendelson, a licensed acupuncturist at Seattle Holistic Beauty, told The Penny Hoarder. “Someone who is having a heart attack doesn’t.”
Mendelson says people should try the least invasive option first.
Example: Diffusing essential oil to treat a minor headache before reaching for the aspirin.
2. Can I Afford It?
If you have room in your budget to try a low-risk alternative product or treatment, it might be worth a try.
“Someone who is comfortably well off can be far more experimental than someone who is financially squeezed,” says Mendelson.
But if the cost of the product you’re considering “means you have to forgo more conventional medical treatment, then you definitely shouldn’t do it,” he advises.
Example: Applying store-bought eye cream to your crow’s feet instead of an expensive prescription ointment.
3. Can I Fact-Check Its Claims?
Mendelson says it’s important to evaluate the claims a company makes about its product to determine if they’re valid or potentially false.
Websites like the FTC, Nutrition.gov and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are good resources to help you evaluate the validity of a claim.
“Generally speaking, the broader the claims, the less I trust them,” he says. “Specific claims are easier to evaluate.”
Example: Choosing a supplement that makes claims supported by the National Institutes of Health over one that makes nonspecific statements like “results guaranteed.”
When in Doubt, Talk to Your Doctor
In the end, your physician is the best person to offer advice on whether you should try a product or treatment.
“If you are afraid to talk to your doctor, that is a huge red flag,” says Ruescher.
That’s probably an indication you should skip the idea altogether because it could cause you harm, she says.
Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She loves telling readers about affordable ways to stay healthy, so look her up on Twitter (@lisah) if you’ve got a tip to share.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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Are On-Demand Movie Rentals Really Cheaper Than the Theater?
Sunday night’s Oscars are supposed to be a celebration of Hollywood’s best and brightest, but they’re also a reminder of the cost and overall state of a night out at the movies.
Both the Academy Awards and Sundance Film Festival are designed to bring a little warmth into a cold winter, but the $8.97 average cost of a movie ticket in the United States has moviegoers a bit heated for other reasons. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, that price is nearly 25% higher than it was a decade ago. Meanwhile, the 1.23 billion tickets sold last year in the U.S. was the lowest head count at the movies since 1992.
While giant multiplexes have brought the total number of movie screens in the United States to an all-time high of nearly 40,400, the number of actual theaters sits at 5,750. That’s up from an all-time low of 5,683 in 2012, but still well below the 7,500 that existed two decades ago.
We realize that on-demand services have made it easier to rent movies at home (or on just about any device you please), and have reduced the price of movies for those willing to wait — but is it still the most cost-effective option?
We chose three common ways to see movies — first-run theaters, second-run theaters, and on-demand pay-per-view — to determine just how much the price of movies is changing American theatergoing habits, and if there isn’t a better way for moviegoers to experience the films they love without being charged an Oscar winner’s paycheck to do so.
First-Run Theaters
As you’re probably aware, that $8.97 average ticket price varies wildly not only by market, but by theater location. The Empire AMC 25 on 42nd Street in New York just off of Times Square, for example, starts its adult tickets for Black Panther at $16.29, though early-morning matinees can be seen for around $8. That same film at the AMC Classic Cobblestone in Des Moines, Iowa, however, gets $9 for an adult ticket, with a $6 matinee. Big chains like Regal and Cinemark have similar disparities across the country.
Theater chains have attempted to pad higher ticket prices by offering amenities like comfier seating, extensive food and alcohol options (in some cases, delivered to your seat), and enhanced audio and video options (Dolby sound, 3D, IMAX). To some, they constitute added value; to others, they just make high prices higher.
However, there are ways to whittle the price down beyond just skipping the concessions counter and shrugging off upgrades. Costco, for example, sells four-packs of fixed-price tickets to AMC theaters for $35.99 (which excludes customers in New York, New Jersey, or California) or $42.99 (for those higher-priced locales).
Whether or not a $9 or $11 ticket constitutes a deal will depend largely on the market you’re in (as it will for Regal Cinemas or Cinemark tickets with a similar deal). But it’s already above the national average, and the deal doesn’t improve in bulk, so even a 10-pack will offer the same price.
Another worthwhile approach is skipping the big movie chains altogether and finding an independent theater. One-screen locations like the Cinemagic Theater, Moreland Theater, Roseway Theater, and St. John’s Theater in Portland, Ore., for example, show first-run films in a slightly less tech-savvy setting for $7.50 to $8 adult general admission and $5.50 to $6 for matinees — with discounts throughout the week.
Other independent theaters, like the Coolidge Corner Theatre in the Boston area, will offer memberships that either knock a few dollars off the price of admission and concessions, or give you free admission and some popcorn. The more movies you see, the more of a value it becomes (25 movie tickets at a $3 discount pays for a $75 annual membership).
And if you want vengeance on both Hollywood and the theaters, there’s always MoviePass. For $9.95 a month, you get to see as many movies as you want at participating theaters and free up money for concessions and upgrades. However, MoviePass buys up tickets and doesn’t make it easy for theaters to opt out. Nobody knows how that’s going to play out for theaters – but going to see two new films a month for $5 apiece might work out just fine for frequent moviegoers.
Second-Run Theaters
In the Pacific Northwest, the McMenamins chain of brewpubs also runs a handful of second-run theaters that charge between $2 to $4 per showing — or nothing if you stay at a room in its Kennedy School grade-school-turned-hotel.
Independent second-run theaters like The Academy and The Laurelhurst show slightly aged films like Coco and Murder on the Orient Express for $3 to $4 while serving beer, wine, pizza, and even sushi. They’ll also show monthly schedules of themed classics and, in the case of the Academy, will babysit your children during weekend shows.
While the emergence of multiplexes and the shrinking window between theatrical and on-demand release has pressured second-run theaters, they still have enough life in them for AMC to dub certain theaters AMC Classics and charge as little as $1.99 for second-run showings in places like Fort Collins, Colo. That said, the $2 theater has been around for ages, and isn’t necessarily helped by AMC Classics locations that charge up to $5.99 for second-run films. Remember that price…
On-Demand
For on-demand movies on cable, satellite, or streaming services, including Amazon’s Prime Video or Walmart’s Vudu, $5.99 is the magic number for newer and more popular releases. Occasionally, you may see a $2.99 discount on a film like the Oscar-nominated World War II epic Dunkirk, or a 99-cent rental on an independent film like Good Time (which Amazon makes available for free to Prime members).
But there’s a catch for much of the on-demand content: For cable and satellite, you’ll need a subscription to access those on-demand films. According to the Leichtman Research Group, the average monthly cable bill is $85 and the average monthly satellite bill is $100. That basically leaves services like Amazon Prime Video or Vudu — which also require a monthly bill for Internet service. Broadband service can range from $40 to $80 a month in urban areas, but rural Internet customers know the price can reach well above $100 for service good enough to stream an HD movie.
While $5.99 for the cost of streaming a movie into a room with a family of four would be a fine deal on its own, the folks viewing those movies almost never consider the cost of the infrastructure bringing them in.
To actually make that film “cheaper” than at a second-run theater — or even a discounted first-run movie — you’d have to wait for it to move to a streaming service you’re already paying for (and Netflix and Amazon Prime’s monthly payments have each risen in the last year).
Say what you will about a $16 showing of Black Panther: At least it isn’t charging you an ongoing $60 a month just for the chance to rent it.
Related Articles:
- Supporting a Passion for Movies on a Reasonable Budget
- 30 Great Podcasts: The Best Entertainment Bargain on the Internet
- Cutting the Cord? How to Find Cheap, High-Speed Internet to Handle Streaming Video
The post Are On-Demand Movie Rentals Really Cheaper Than the Theater? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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Meet the Man Who Will Get Paid $60,000 to Explore Cancun for 6 Months
For his next career move, the native of Boise, Idaho, will earn $10,000 a month as the “chief experience officer” for Cancun.com. He’ll enmesh himself in the Yucatán peninsula to help promote tourism in the region for the next half year.
Out of 6,000 applicants for the position, Nanney cleared several rounds of voting to be chosen for the dream job.
In one video that would help him land him the job, Nanney explores downtown Boise during New Year’s Eve to show the world there’s more to the city than just ‘taters and blue stadium grass.
But, given his past jobs and travel experience, will it be just another day at the office?
The New Cancun.com CEO Just Landed the Ultimate Dream Job
We tracked down “Ivan the Intrepid” to grill him about how he tackled the contest and what makes him so “intrepid.” Please note that this interview was edited for content and space.
So you’ve tried out for similar roles in the past. What is it that draws you to these kinds of gigs?
Ultimately what I’ve discovered is that it’s that sense of freedom with knowing I can go where I want, be where I want and do what I want when I want. I’ve discovered freedom. Once you taste that freedom and you realize you don’t need the rat race from 9 to 5 — that has been my biggest motivator.
Who shoots your videos?
I do! My expectation for the job is I’d be the only one down there doing it, so I wanted to give them a realistic look of what it was like for me running and gunning and setting up my own shots, shooting my own stuff and creating my own interactions. So I was pretty much a one-man crew. [To learn], I just go to the University of YouTube, and I’ve experimented. I definitely have a lot more to learn.
What was your strategy in this contest?
I used Instagram stories, Facebook and I made a video showing… ways people could help me. One of the things that really helped me stand out is that last couple of days before they chose the top 10, I asked for 10 people on my Facebook to send Cancun.com a message telling them who their choice was for CEO and why. And from what I heard probably over 100 people ended up sending messages and some of them were very detailed and very in depth. There were people I knew from kindergarten writing in, people I’ve worked with, family and friends. That was really sweet. The social media team behind Cancun.com asked me to create a template people could copy and paste because they were getting so many long messages.
Are you worried this will just be another day at the office?
So far the office has been good, so it definitely wouldn’t be a bad thing. This is going to be different because usually I’m on the go a lot more, and I’ve craved the ability to be in one place and get to know it intimately cultural-wise and historically. Unfortunately with my personal YouTube and blog it’s definitely more of a labor of love, so having the financial ability to do what I love doing is going to be great.
Speaking of finances, how are you able to afford to live the way you do?
For one, I don’t have a lot of expenses. I don’t have a car payment and I don’t have a rent payment. I was always a budget traveler, and it’s actually cheaper to be traveling in certain countries than it was to be living here. I got really good at saving. Now obviously the goal is to have a revenue stream. I’m building a tiny house so that would accomplish the goals of creating a home base and getting that passive income stream. The potato money’s been good to me — I make good money traveling with the potato and that’s been funding my tiny house build.
We’ve got to talk about the potato you hauled around the country for the Idaho Potato Commission. What was the most memorable moment from one of your tours hauling the potato?
We drove it down to Brooklyn and put it on a barge and floated it around the Statue of Liberty and through the harbor all morning. The ridiculousness of a 12,000-pound potato on a barge in front of the Statue of Liberty and using the Jet Skis to film it all was a good combination.
What would you say is the biggest hurdle you’ve faced while doing this type of work, and how did you overcome that?
It’s definitely not all sunrises and beaches. But, I think that the struggles and challenges of this kind of lifestyle are definitely some of the fun parts, and that’s where I experience the most growth. I think the hardest hurdle is the social pressure and expectation. I graduated from Boise State University summa cum laude, and I’ve always done well in school, and with that people expect certain things from you. You want to make people happy and live up to those expectations. But, I call myself a travel bum and that’s not the idea that a lot of people thought I’d be doing after I graduated. People always ask me, “When are you going to a real job?” and I’m like, “Hey I get paid — what’s not real about this?”
Is it a struggle to make relationships work?
The funny thing is I actually feel like my relationship with my family has improved. I feel like our interactions are a lot more engaging when we do talk. And I’ve accepted that there’s just a different dynamic to the relationships that I have and they just have to be a little more spread out. And that doesn’t make them any less meaningful.
If you had to take a 9-to-5 job, what would it be?
Ahhh you’re going to make me choose! I guess that means ruling out other fun, flexible jobs like being a fireman, entrepreneur or crocodile hunter. With those off of the table, I think I would have to get a job working for either an international non-profit or a local one that helps refugees settle in the area. It would be a way of traveling from home while also making a difference in people’s lives.
What advice do you have for someone who would be totally stoked to live like you do?
I think the biggest thing is just putting yourself out there and overcoming that fear. There are a lot of things you can do to ease yourself into it. You don’t have to buy a flight for four months in India. In your hometown just go around and start exploring there and start slowly branching out from there. Find your voice. Your point of view and perspective is really all you need.
Alex Mahadevan is a data journalist at The Penny Hoarder. He’s thinking the upcoming vacation in Iceland will be a little less interesting after talking to Ivan.
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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