As of January 1, 2020, Medicare Supplement Insurance Plan F will be discontinued. Learn what this means for current policyholders and soon-to-be Medicare enrollees.
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الثلاثاء، 6 مارس 2018
Yes, This Company Will Actually Pay You to Instagram Your Way Across Europe
The desire to drop everything and jet across the world is so real, but realistically speaking, that kind of travel can be hard to plan –– and afford.
Well y’all, it’s time to put an end to travel envy because I’ve got an awesome opportunity for you.
Travel company Busabout is looking for social-media-lovin’ travel addicts to go on a three-month, all-expenses-paid European vacation.
That’s right, not only will Busabout foot the bill for all travel and accommodation expenses, but will also provide a daily allowance for spending money. There will also be a bonus “success fee” paid at the end of the trip.
And don’t worry about getting home when it’s all said and done, your return flight is covered, too.
Sounds pretty sweet, right? Keep on reading to learn about Busabout’s Ultimate Travel Squad.
The Busabout Ultimate Travel Squad
Last year, Busabout hosted a similar contest to choose two candidates to serve as a brand ambassador and video producer.
This year, Busabout is doubling down and creating a whole squad of travelers. Four people will be chosen to hit 47 locations across 15 countries and document the trip on the company’s social media accounts.
The company needs one Instagrammer, one YouTuber, one blogger, and one person responsible for Snapchat or Instagram Stories.
The winners will travel to Europe on the Busabout Hop-On Hop-Off tour. Winners should prepared to set aside the entire summer, as the trip runs from late May to early September.
The itinerary includes a lot of the classics, such as Paris, Amsterdam and Rome, but will also take you to lesser-known hidden gems across the continent like Lake Bled in Slovenia.
At the end of your travels, the trip will wrap up with a week of island hopping on the Adriatic Coast of Croatia –– SWOON.
How to Apply for the Busabout Travel Squad
If you want to join the Ultimate Travel Squad, you need more than wanderlust and a desire for a free vacation.
Busabout is looking for engaging storytellers willing to not only document every moment of their trip, but share it with the world!
While you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy your travels, you will be required to regularly report to the Busabout marketing department and deliver completed content by deadline.
There are four positions available:
“Do it for the ‘gram” is your life motto. Your camera roll regularly has 32 versions of the same picture. You’ve spent just as much time thinking of a caption as you spent editing the photo.
YouTube
You love telling a story through video and are always looking for the best angle. You know all of the famous YouTubers and care more about subscribers than followers.
Blogging
You’ve got a passion for writing. After a day wandering through the Louvre or hitting the slopes in the Swiss Alps, you want to sit down and wax poetic about your adventures.
Snapchat and Instagram Stories
You’re always documenting your life as it happens, whether it’s through Snapchat or Insta stories. Your friends have probably begged you to put the phone down at least once, but you know some of the best posts are the spontaneous, candid ones.
Ready to apply? Here’s what you need to do:
- Choose which social media platform you want to apply for.
- Make a 60-second YouTube video about yourself and why you’re a good fit.
- Include the Busabout logo in your video thumbnail and be sure to tag it with #ultimatetravelsquad and #busabout.
- Fill out an application and be sure to attach your video!
Candidates can only apply for one category, so choose wisely. Consider applying as a team if you have fellow social media savvy friends itching for an adventure.
For group applications, you can do your video together, but be sure that each person picks a different social media platform.
You must be at least 18 years old to apply, and all submissions must be in English. Applicants are also responsible for ensuring they have a valid passport or visa for at least 90 days.
Ready to pack your bags for this adventure of a lifetime? Hurry up and apply, the deadline for applications is April 17, 11:59 p.m. GMT.
Kaitlyn Blount is a junior staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She would love to go on a three-month long vacation, but her dogs would miss her way too much.
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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Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis Teach Their Kids the Value of Money Early
But that isn’t always so.
Actor Ashton Kutcher recently made headlines after stating he wouldn’t be setting up trust funds for his two kids with wife Mila Kunis.
“I’m not setting up a trust for them,” Kutcher said in a February 14 episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. “We’ll end up giving our money away to charity and to various things.”
Kutcher and Kunis — parents of 3-year-old daughter Wyatt and 1-year-old son Dimitri — have a combined estimated net worth of $255 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Though Kutcher balks at leaving millions to the children, he does want his kids to live successful adult lives.
“Hopefully, they’ll be motivated to have what they had [while growing up] or some version of what they had,” he said in the podcast.
Kutcher also said if his kids want to start a business and have a good business plan, he’ll invest in it. But he doesn’t want his kids expecting to receive a bunch of money that’ll set them up for life.
Instead, Kutcher wants them to understand how to get by without depending on material advantages.
“I’m going to take them camping a lot just because I want them to be really resourceful and I want to teach them how to be resourceful,” he said.
Kutcher and Kunis aren’t the only celebrities who hope to teach their kids the value of working for themselves. Last year, we wrote about celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay telling the media he wasn’t leaving his fortune to his four children.
Though some might think it’s unreasonable for these multimillionaires not to share their wealth with their offspring, the underlying lesson is to teach kids the importance of earning a living and valuing what they work for.
“What our kids can learn from paid employment is a work ethic, that loose phrase that captures the ability to listen, exert ourselves, cooperate with others, do our best, and stick to a task until we’ve done it, and done it right,” personal-finance columnist Ron Lieber writes in his book, “The Opposite of Spoiled.”
Even we ordinary folks sometimes find ourselves guilty of overindulging our kids. A little spoiling isn’t the end of the world, but not preparing our children to be financially independent adults is doing a disservice to them.
So don’t be afraid to talk to your kids about money. Teach them not everything will automatically be handed to them.
Start young with introductions to concepts like needs versus wants. Then continue the discussions so that your teens master the concepts of earning money and budgeting before they go out into the world.
It may not be the same as leaving an inheritance, but passing down personal-finance knowledge is incredibly valuable in its own right.
Nicole Dow is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She enjoys writing about parenting and money.
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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What Should You Do About Bitcoin (and Other Cryptocurrencies)?
In the past few months, a couple of other writers for The Simple Dollar, Holly Johnson and Michael Gardon, have offered their takes on Bitcoin, which in large part overlapped with my own (I offered my own nascent thoughts on Bitcoin back in the early days). Still, a week doesn’t go by when I don’t get two or three mailbag questions about Bitcoin, so I thought it might make sense to just address all of these questions at once in a single article.
What is Bitcoin, and how does it work?
This is probably the most common question that I get. People simply want to know what it is and how it works and why they should care, in very clear terms.
So, here’s my attempt at doing just that.
So, first, why would I be explaining this? I’ve been following Bitcoin nearly since its inception. I have a passion for these kinds of things – my previous career and my college studies drew heavily on computer science and mathematics and it remains an area of passion for me. Combine that with my interest in finances and economics and it’s not surprising that I have had an intellectual interest in Bitcoin since day one. I have personally mined a small amount of Bitcoin, way back in the very early days, and I’ve mostly just held it ever since. (Even with the huge spikes in value, I still don’t hold a lot of value in Bitcoin.)
Here’s how I describe Bitcoin to friends of mine, and even to my older children.
Let’s imagine for a second that dollars were completely digital, like a file on your computer. Imagine every dollar you have was a computer file, right? For some things, like paying some of your bills or giving money to friends, that would be super convenient. If everyone did things this way, it’d be really convenient – you could literally just pay for everything with the dollars stored on your phone.
Well, if that were the case, it’d be easy to become rich. You could just copy all of the files over and over and just make tons of money.
So, how do we fix that? Well, we could have a giant ledger that tracks every single dollar out there and who currently holds it. Whenever someone gives a dollar to someone else, it’s tracked in that ledger. You know how dollar bills have their own serial number – you’d just track them by serial number.
So, there’s a few obvious problems there. One, isn’t that a pretty big invasion of privacy? The solution there is to just let people create their own addresses, like email addresses, that keeps track of their digital dollars. That address isn’t tied to any individual person and is completely anonymous. Let’s call that a “wallet.”
A second big problem is trusting that ledger. Who gets to run the ledger? Who gets to record new entries in the ledger? Furthermore, what’s to stop the person running the ledger from just wholesale inventing more digital dollars and adding them to the ledger and giving them to himself?
Well, you could make the ledger trustworthy by letting pretty much anyone who wants it keep their own copy of the ledger. So, imagine that tons and tons of people have a copy of that ledger, and whenever a transaction occurs, all of the ledgers get updated. If you try to give a dollar to someone that you don’t actually have, the ledgers reject this and say it’s an invalid transaction. Someone can’t just add a bunch of dollars to their own copy of the ledger because all of the other ledgers would say, “That transaction doesn’t or can’t exist,” and reject that transaction.
It’s like an accounting firm that keeps a bunch of copies of the books for a business to make sure they’re all the same, except those copies of the books are distributed all over the world. If someone puts some bogus entries into one of the copies of the books, then that copy would get rejected and thrown away because it didn’t match the many many other copies out there.
This is what Bitcoin is. You have digital Bitcoins you keep in your wallet. When you want to spend them, you give them to someone else. (These steps are all password protected, of course, with some pretty clever cryptography to keep everything secure.) That transaction is shared in all of the ledgers in the world, so you truly no longer have the Bitcoin you spent – if you tried to “spend” a second copy somehow, all of the ledgers would just say “nope” and reject the transaction as bogus.
So, what’s the reward for keeping a copy of the ledger and dealing with all of the transactions? Well, they’re rewarded with occasionally receiving a “free” Bitcoin. This is called “mining” – part of “mining” is that you help maintain the ledger. The ledger that everyone has a copy of is called the “blockchain.”
So, Bitcoin is like virtual money where every time you spend any of it or receive any of it, that transaction is stored in many, many thousands of copies of a ledger (called the “blockchain”) to ensure that transaction is a valid one. Basically, instead of having a physical dollar to demonstrate that you have a dollar, the “proof” that you have that dollar is in the many, many ledgers out there that say you have this dollar. When you spend that dollar, rather than giving a physical item, you just tell all of the ledgers that you’ve given the dollar to someone else, an effort that’s handled electronically.
(I’m simplifying here in some places, but this is the core idea.)
OK, so… what’s the big deal?
The big deal is that the concept of Bitcoin – and the blockchain that supports it – gives virtual things most of the benefits of physical versions of those things. You can’t simply copy them at will, for one, and transactions are extremely difficult to rig. Most of the security issues that have happened with Bitcoin are due to people doing unsecured things with Bitcoin that they wouldn’t dream of doing with actual cash money, like letting the shady guy down on the corner “hold your money for you.”
In concept, Bitcoin – or at least the broader idea of how it works, even if Bitcoin itself isn’t exactly perfect – solves most of the issues with an actual digital currency.
Because Bitcoin was the first digital currency to do this, it’s the one that has been adopted most widely (there are some other currencies trying to do the same thing – we’ll get to those in a bit). I should note that Bitcoin started off as a proof of concept of a really clever idea, and I don’t think even the original creator of it ever believed that it would ever become wildly popular.
People started using Bitcoin at first for transactions as kind of a novelty. After a while, some people who wanted to do financial exchanges that were … shall we way, “off the books” … started using Bitcoin for those transactions, and this made people want to start buying and selling Bitcoin in exchange for both real world currency and for illicit goods. After that, people started investing in Bitcoin, with the idea that if they bought Bitcoin and waited, they could sell it for more than it was worth, because if more people were buying Bitcoins with dollars (or Euros or whatever), the value of Bitcoins would inevitably go up, and then eventually they could sell their Bitcoins and make a nice profit.
That leads us to where we’re at today. You have some people buying and selling Bitcoin as an investment. Others are using it as a legitimate online currency. Others are using it for the combination of privacy and security of long-distance buying and selling.
It would not take too much for Bitcoin to be accepted for payment at a store if you have a smartphone with you with a Bitcoin payment app on it. The backend for that is basically in place.
Why won’t Bitcoin just replace “real” money?
If a government decided that they were going to “back” Bitcoin in some fashion and use it for their official transactions, then it certainly could become “real” money. However, nations generally want a bit more control over the money in their country – Bitcoin would cause them to lose the ability to control the money supply in the country.
(Okay, a bit of economic simplification to follow.)
The big thing that keeps prices from swinging rapidly in a modern country is that the government keeps a pretty tight grip on the money supply. If there is too much money out there, it’s just like normal supply and demand – an individual dollar isn’t worth as much because there are so many of them everywhere and the price of things you buy in the store goes up and this can spiral out of control if they’re not careful. If there’s not enough money out there (and people are just holding onto what they have), then people stop spending money entirely, stores go out of business, and so on. There’s a balance needed there to keep economies going – a dollar needs to be fairly rare, but not TOO rare.
Just using Bitcoin wouldn’t work for a modern nation, because they lose all control over the money supply. Prices would start swinging like crazy, just like the value of Bitcoin. You don’t want the prices of all goods to fluctuate 10% on a daily basis.
My guess is that at some point, governments will start adopting something akin to Bitcoin, but with some government control over the money supply. Bitcoin inherently doesn’t have that.
What about other cryptocurrencies, like Ethereum?
With the huge success of Bitcoin, it’s not surprising that other people have jumped into the mix with their own variation on Bitcoin. Some of them are basically just copies of Bitcoin where someone has a bunch of the currency and hope that it’ll take off and they’ll get rich – those are virtually guaranteed to fail.
Some of the others that actually have a clever improvement on Bitcoin integrated into them have achieved some popularity on their own. Ethereum is one example of that. Ethereum works much like Bitcoin, with the “blockchain” shared ledger idea, but it basically allows more complex contracts to be written instead of just “buy” and “sell” transactions. For example, you might have a contract with someone that enables you to be paid automatically on a certain date and that contract is literally written into the blockchain.
In fact, a lot of large businesses are starting to use an Ethereum-like system to manage internal contracts or agreements, which saves a ton of time and effort for all involved once the system is set up.
So, should I invest in Bitcoin or Ethereum or any other digital currency?
In a word, no, not unless you’re completely fine with losing all of it.
Bitcoin is a real thing with real value, but there is no entity out there that is really concerned with maintaining that value first and foremost. It doesn’t have, say, a Treasury Department working to make sure that the value of it is stable. It’s not even comparable to a company’s stock, in which the company (usually) wants the value of the stock to go up.
Instead, you have a bunch of different entities out there with a bunch of different aims. Some want it to keep going up forever. Some want it to go down. Some want it to go down for now, then up. Others want the exact reverse of that. And there’s no regulating force behind it, no one that wants it to be stable and to maintain value long term. There is no one obligated to buy it if everyone starts selling it, or sell it if everyone starts buying it, for the purpose of adding stability.
With money, treasury departments do this directly. With stocks, companies do this indirectly with things like dividends, and occasionally directly with stock offerings and stock buybacks. With cryptocurrencies, as of yet, no one is doing anything for stability, (other than small startups solely piggybacking on a particular cryptocurrency, and they generally don’t have enough power to stop a flood of selling).
That doesn’t mean that Bitcoin is somehow bad, just that an individual investor shouldn’t be betting a significant amount of his or her net worth on something that can fluctuate so wildly. If you have a bit of extra money and want to dabble in it, I say go for it, but I wouldn’t based anything I was relying on for future living on it.
But aren’t people getting rich off of this?
Yes, there are quite a few people who have gotten rich off of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin being the most notable one. Mostly, the people who have gotten rich are people who were speculating in Bitcoin with money they could afford to lose without disrupting their financial future – many had substantial wealth already, or had very little to lose to begin with and were willing to accept enormous risk.
I could invest a lot of my net worth in any number of highly risky things. Some might pay off enormously – most wouldn’t. If I have resources to spare, then this might make for a great way to spend my time and extra resources.
The reality is that most people don’t have that kind of flexibility in their finances. Investing enough money into something to actually make a huge change in their life would require risking a large portion of their net worth in something with a high risk factor, and if that investment didn’t pay off, that person is left destitute. It’s far too big of a risk for most people to reasonably take.
When you see the success stories around Bitcoin, what you don’t see are the twenty times as many failure stories in all kinds of other investments, or even the failure stories of people who bought into Bitcoin when it was near its peak and lost half of their money in a month. They don’t get reported because they’re not exciting. The guy who was already wealthy who invested $1 million that he could afford to invest and turned it into $20 million? That’s a story.
It’s honestly not that different than the gold rushes in the 1800s. Stories would spread of the person who struck it rich early on and that would cause a stampede, only for almost none of the next wave of people to do very well. The people who did do well were the ones who set up the hotels and sold the supplies.
So, what should Simple Dollar readers do?
First and foremost, understand in a basic way what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is a virtual item that people can buy and sell. When one is given to someone else, that transaction is recorded in many, many ledgers around the world. That system of ledgers is called the “blockchain.” There are a lot of smart security steps in this process. That’s really all most people need to know. Other cryptocurrencies use basically this same idea, with some variations.
Second, don’t invest in any cryptocurrency unless you can afford to easily lose all that you “invest.” Never, ever put any money into a cryptocurrency unless it’s money you don’t need to survive on in the future. If you want to play around with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, then do so, but use “fun money” to do it. There are a lot of scammers out there making up new cryptocurrencies, and even the reputable ones are bouncing around in value like a child in an inflatable pen.
Third, I virtually guarantee there will be versions of blockchain technology that you will be using ten years from now. The core idea is one that you should most definitely understand, because it is a really great way to make digital transactions secure and verifiable. There are already companies using this internally, and there are really brilliant ideas for blockchain being publicly considered and developed all the time. Understand it now, so it seems more natural later. I truly believe that some variation on blockchain is how all financial transactions will eventually be handled – it just likely won’t be through Bitcoin itself or any of the other current cryptocurrencies.
Finally, if you have any deep interest in math, computer science, and economics, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all of these things are really fascinating right now. How the systems actually work and some of the uses and ideas being proposed right now are really, really interesting. If this kind of topic interests you, the best starter book I’ve found is Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain by Andreas M. Antonopoulos, which will teach you the basics. Read it slowly, look up things you don’t understand, and you’ll get there.
What about you? Are you invested in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies?
In early 2012, I mined a small amount of Bitcoin while I was learning about it. (Remember, mining effectively means supporting the network of ledger copies called the “blockchain.”) I participated in a very early Bitcoin mining pool that was run in a very ad-hoc way, where it was more of a lark than anything. Bitcoin was valued at about $3 per BTC at that time. I ended up with only a fraction of a Bitcoin – approximately 0.05 BTC – but I only mined for a very short while. A year or so later, I donated 0.02 BTC to a website that I was enjoying. I still have the remaining 0.03 BTC. I haven’t bought any Bitcoin, nor sold the 0.03 BTC that I have.
I find Bitcoin pretty interesting and have followed it and other uses of the “blockchain” idea for years. I think Bitcoin will retain some value over the long term, but I am not at all convinced that it will remain over $10,000 per BTC. I expect that it will remain incredibly volatile. I have little faith in other cryptocurrencies other than as proof of concepts for neat ideas until one is backed by the full faith and credit of an extremely large institution that ties its financial future to it and thus has interest in maintaining some stability. I will not be investing in any cryptocurrency until something like that happens, though I may attempt to mine some for fun.
I do not feel someone is foolish for investing in Bitcoin provided that they have the financial resources such that it is not financially damaging to them to do so. If someone is well off and uses excess resources to invest, or someone is doing it with their fun money, then there are far worse things to do with your money than dabble and trade in Bitcoin. I just discourage anyone from using any money that they need for their financial future in Bitcoin or any current cryptocurrency.
Good luck, and have fun.
The post What Should You Do About Bitcoin (and Other Cryptocurrencies)? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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How to Discover Your Financial Grit
You might be under the illusion that financial success is all about smarts.
Nope. Think again.
You can be the smartest mathematical guru in the world and find yourself broke.
Why is this?
Don't all the smart people get the best-paying jobs and a Lamborghini or two?
Isn't it the smart people who can shrug their shoulders at briefcases full of cash because their portfolios are too big for the hassle of making the deposit?
Well, not exactly.
I'll let you in on a little secret.
You know what the secret sauce is to financial success?
It's grit, and I'm going to show you how to get it.
What's Grit Anyway?
Look it up in the dictionary and you'll find words like courage, resolve, strength, and character.
I don't know about you, but when I hear that someone has grit, I picture a tough, rough war hero pressing forward despite unspeakable odds.
I picture a weathered sailor in the perfect storm riding the crest of a 100-foot wave destined for glory. I picture someone who doesn't stop even in the face of danger or failure. I picture a Soldier of Finance. 
That's grit, my friends.
The Importance of Grit
The interesting thing about grit is that it's actually one of the most important qualities to have in academics. Smarts only takes you so far – grit takes you beyond the limits of your mental abilities.
In an article by Emily Hanford, writing of Angela Duckworth and the research on grit, she writes:
In one study, Duckworth found that smarter students actually had less grit than their peers who scored lower on an intelligence test. This finding suggests that, among the study participants — all students at an Ivy League school — people who are not as bright as their peers “compensate by working harder and with more determination.” And their effort pays off: The grittiest students — not the smartest ones — had the highest GPAs.
Hard work. Determination. These are ideals that have proven themselves to be valuable over and over again.
If you want to do anything notable in life, it's probably going to require some grit.
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Tenacity is highly valuable. And when it comes to finances, you're going to need a huge helping of it.
Financial Success and Grit
I believe there is a strong correlation between financial success and grit. Let me explain.
Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt. You should hear some of the stories I hear on a regular basis. While many of my clients come into my office to talk about their investments, inevitably we get on the subject of debt – which genuinely needs to be addressed as part of their overall financial strategy.
Student loans, credit cards, mortgages, business loans – every piece of debt my clients hold is a liability that takes away from their ability to invest and make money on their money. Many times, debt becomes an overwhelming burden in the lives of my clients, and they can't see a way out.
The problem with debt is that while it's pretty easy to learn how to get out of it, doing so is another matter altogether. It takes well-estabilished grit to sacrifice the majority of discretionary expenses and put in the extra hours at work to have enough money to make a real dent in the problem of debt.
Whether you're trying to overcome burdensome debt, find a suitable career, or develop a well-balanced investment portfolio, you're going to need some serious grit.
The truth is financial success requires a deep commitment to a set of ideals not just at the beginning of the journey, but over the long haul through everything that life throws in one's path.
How to Grab Some Financial Grit
How do you develop grit in your financial life? I have a few suggestions . . . .
1. Work up to larger goals.
If you want to develop some financial grit you can't start out by tackling nearly impossible goals. If you do, failure will stomp on your dreams and you might slip into inaction.
Instead, start on a few small, attainable financial goals. For example, you might begin by creating a budget that actually works. Don't try to become an overnight millionaire, start wherever you're at on your financial journey.
Over time, once you have the foundational pieces of financial planning in place, you can work up to learning how to invest with confidence or start your own business.
2. Decide who you're going to become.
If you feel you're timid and don't take many risks, it's time to change how you view yourself. If you tell yourself day after day that you're a nobody and you're not going to amount to anything, well, you'll probably fulfill your own prophecy.
Decide who you're going to become. Who do you want to be? If you could start fresh, what would you do?
Never let who you've been determine who you become. Do you think I was born with my own business and a career I love? No way! I had to fight to get to where I am today. The good news is you can do the same.
3. Practice getting back up after failures.
If you can learn to get back up after failures, you'll find some grit.
Failure is often found on the path to success.
Theodore Roosevelt once said:
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure . . . than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Don't be afraid of failure! It will happen. Develop some grit by pressing on.
4. Develop a strong support system.
Sometimes the only way you can get through a difficult situation is with the help of others. Your grit coupled with the strength and wisdom of others might just be the recipe to get you through rough times.
That's why I highly recommend developing a strong support system. Regardless of how much grit you can muster up, there will be occasions you're going to need to rely on a friend or loved one.
When you do, you'll realize that not only can others help you get through a difficult financial situation like going through a costly divorce, enduring a stock market crash, or watching your business dissolve into nothing, but people can encourage you to get gritty and march forward.
Financial grit will help you find a great deal of financial success. Remember, it's not about smarts, it's about how determined you are to reach your goals and stick with the plan even when trials and tribulations come your way.
Go with grit!
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Make the most of your Isa to grow your money
Investing in growth funds is an attractive idea – but it’s wise to diversify to reduce the risks.
Investing for growth is a popular strategy and one that suits many Isa investors in the run-up to retirement.
The idea is to hold companies whose profits and share prices are likely to dramatically outperform the stock market over the next few years and then sit back and reap the rewards.
Many such companies are at an early stage in their lives and are keen to reinvest profits back into supporting future development. However, they can also be mature names that perform well in all conditions, have consistent earnings, and pay dividends to shareholders.
In an ideal world, an investor following this strategy would pick the next Microsoft before it comes to prominence. Unfortunately, while some companies will see their valuations soar, plenty fail to live up to expectations.
“Growth stocks have the potential to become overvalued after a period in which they are in demand by investors and suffer significant falls,” says Patrick Connolly, a certified financial planner with Chase de Vere. “There will be times when the strategy does well and when it performs badly.”
The main risk is a company not delivering on the growth that it has promised – or investors getting too excited about its potential and this is reflected in an inflated share price, according to Adrian Lowcock, investment director at Architas, the multimanager.
“The result is that growth companies become overvalued and the share price comes crashing back to earth when reality hits,” he says.
However, growth stocks can be considered by a wide range of investors, according to Mr Connolly, including those prepared to take high levels of risk to generate superior long-term returns.
As is often the case, the most sensible option is to opt for an investment fund that puts money into a wide range of companies. A decent amount of diversification should help protect your overall portfolio from the impact of companies that fail.
Mr Lowcock believes managers pursuing a growth strategy need to understand the risks of each stock – and how they stack up against other names in their portfolio to ensure the level of overall risk being taken is appropriate.
“A good understanding of corporate balance sheets, cash flow and profit is essential to understand the risks in the business,” he says. “Fund managers also need knowledge of the wider business and the strengths and weaknesses of the management team.”
Darius McDermott, managing director of Chelsea Financial Services, says sentiment towards growth stocks is currently positive, with valuations reliant on these companies delivering as expected in the future.
“The underlying stocks [companies] in growth funds tend to be more expensive than others in the market, especially now when economic growth has been so flat for so long,” he explains.
“Investors are willing to pay more for companies that are growing at a faster pace.
“There are also different types of growth – solid and boring or exciting and more volatile. Both can be rewarding; it’s just down to the individual investor.”
While acknowledging that some companies look expensive, Mr McDermott believes a growth strategy still makes sense, with lots of opportunities in the market where companies should be able to grow irrespective of the macroeconomic environment.
“Like all types of fund, good growth fund managers will take active bets,” he says. This means they will perform differently from a tracker fund that simply replicates performance of a stock market index.
“Cost is also a factor, as is a clear and understandable process, so investors know what to expect,” he says.
He also prefers funds that aren’t too large as this enables managers to invest in small-and medium-sized companies that are at an earlier stage in their growth. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule.
“The Fundsmith Equity fund* is large, but the manager is very experienced so this doesn’t impact on his process,” he adds.
For those looking for exposure closer to home, Mr McDermott suggests the Marlborough UK MultiCap Growth fund is worth considering.
“It invests in small, medium and large UK companies that are leaders in their sectors and can grow regardless of the prevailing economic landscape,” he explains.
“Marlborough has a fantastic track record when it comes to stock-picking skill and this fund is no different.”
Another possibility is the Matthews Pacific Tiger fund. “Matthews is a specialist Asian equity fund house based in San Francisco with a large investment team from diverse backgrounds,” he says. “The team has local knowledge and its members speak 13 different languages between them.”
Those who can’t decide on any one fund or region could consider Jupiter Merlin Growth, a high-conviction fund of funds that is run by one of the most respected investment teams.
“Most of the portfolio is held in the top five fund holdings, although underlying stocks remain plentiful and diversified,” says Mr McDermott. “The process is simple: assess the macroeconomic environment, identify the best people, construct the portfolio, then monitor and modify.
* Member of the Moneywise First 50 Funds for beginners.
One to watch: Old Mutual UK Mid Cap*
The aim of the fund, which is run by Richard Watts (pictured above), and is a member of Moneywise’s First 50 Funds for beginners, is to provide capital growth from investing primarily in a portfolio of medium-sized companies.
Adrian Lowcock, investment director at Architas, likes the fund’s focus on identifying companies with dominant market positions that can grow their businesses.
“Mr Watts is looking for opportunities which the wider market has not fully considered and, therefore, has undervalued the shares,” he says.
The largest sector weighting in the fund is fi nancials at 26% of the portfolio, followed by 24% in consumer services and 20% in industrials. Other exposures include consumer goods (13%), technology (5%), healthcare (2%), and basic materials (2%), according to the most recent fund fact sheet.
Its 10 largest stocks, meanwhile, include internet fashion retailer Boohoo.com with a 6% share, followed by media outfit Ascential with 5%, and 4% in SSP Group, a catering company.
The fund has generated significant long-term outperformance of its benchmark, according to Mark Dampier, research director at Hargreaves Lansdown. “Our analysis suggests the manager’s performance has been driven by astute stock picking,” he says. “With the support of a talented team of fund managers investing in the UK, we feel he has the ability to deliver good, long-term returns.”
*Member of the Moneywise First 50 Funds for beginners. For more information visit Moneywise's First 50 Funds for beginners.
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Which Cash Isas will leave you quids in?
Interest rates are on the rise, but is a Cash Isa always the best place for your savings? Moneywise weighs up your options.
You can get up to 5% interest for keeping your cash in a current account and most people don’t pay tax on savings, which means some of the appeal of a Cash Isa has waned.
The introduction of the personal savings allowance in April 2016 means that most people can earn interest on savings without paying tax, regardless of whether this is held in an Isa.
A basic-rate taxpayer can earn £1,000 in interest each year before being required to pay any tax while higher-rate taxpayers can earn £500 tax-free from any source each year. However, additional-rate taxpayers do not receive any personal savings allowance.
So why save in a Cash Isa? If you’re a high earner, Cash Isas are still highly useful – but even if you earn below £150,000 a year, there are benefits to using an Isa.
This is because even if your savings pot is small today, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be in future. Plus if interest rates rise, more modest amounts of savings will start to attract tax in future, based on current allowances. By using an Isa, your savings are protected from tax both now and in the future.
There is further good news for Isa savers, as data from savings comparison website Moneyfacts shows that the average Cash Isa in January 2018 paid 1.09% to savers. That’s more than the average 0.82% in January 2017, although it’s still well below previous years. For example, in January 2012, the average Cash Isa paid a much higher 2.56%.
However, savers should beware as many high-profile Cash Isa accounts today offer interest rates that are lower than the Bank of England’s 0.5% base rate.
This includes the Co-operative Bank Cash Isa, paying 0.46% to savers, as well as the Bank of Scotland Access Cash Isa, Halifax Isa Saver Variable, Lloyds Bank Cash Isa Saver, and Santander e-Isa (Issue 3) – all offering 0.35%.
Even worse is the Virgin Money Easy Access Cash Isa (Issue 20) which pays just 0.25% – half the base rate and way below the best accounts on the market.
Easy-access options
If you will need to dip into your savings and don’t want to tie your cash up for a year or more, look at the top easy-access accounts. These offer immediate access to your money, but pay less interest than fixed-rate accounts.
The Moneywise Best Buy is Tesco Bank Instant Access Cash Isa, which pays 1.16% to savers.
This account can be opened in online or by phone. The minimum deposit is £1 and it accepts transfers from other providers.
Remember, while you can access your cash at any time, if you withdraw your money from an Isa you can’t deposit it again without using up more of your annual £20,000 allowance. For example, if you saved £10,000 in an Isa and withdrew £1,000, if you were to deposit this £1,000 again it would eat into your remaining allowance – leaving you only £9,000 for the remainder of the tax year.
Some providers do offer flexible Isas that allow you to withdraw and deposit again without using your allowance, but these tend to offer much lower rates than the market leaders.
If you’re looking to get a slightly better return without locking your cash away for a year or more, consider a notice account. These accounts allow you to withdraw at any time; you just need to give your provider notice that you are doing so.
The Charter Savings Bank 95 Day Notice Cash Isa (Issue 2) is our top pick. It pays 1.31% to savers who can give 95 days’ notice of any withdrawal. This account must be opened online. The minimum deposit is £1,000 and transfers from other Cash Isa providers are allowed.
Lock your money away
You’ll get higher rates the longer you’re willing to tie up your cash, so this is the best option for savers who know they won’t need access during the fixed period.
The top pick in the one-year Isa market is Charter Savings Bank One Year Fixed Rate Cash Isa. This pays a market-leading 1.46% and must be opened online with a balance of £1,000 or more.
The Charter Savings Bank Two Year Fixed Rate Cash Isa leads the way in the two-year stakes. This account offers a 1.67% interest rate.
Elsewhere, the best three-year fix is the United Bank UK Three Year Fixed Rate Cash Isa, paying 1.87%. However, this account must be opened by post or in one of United Bank UK’s branches, located in Birmingham, Bradford, Glasgow, London and Manchester. The Charter Savings Bank Five Year Fixed Rate Cash Isa at 2.25% is the top pick in the five-year market.
All these accounts allow transfers, which means you can move your Isas from previous years across to earn more in interest.
However, while each of the Cash Isa accounts listed in this guide are fully protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, only the first £85,000 of deposits is protected per banking licence. So if your savings pot is bigger than this, be sure to split your cash across several financial institutions.
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Still time to max out this year’s Isa allowance
The end of the tax year is almost here, but there’s still time to make the most of your annual tax-free allowance.
The 2018/19 tax year will be the 20th year the individual savings account (Isa) has been available. But there is plenty of life in the old dog yet, and still time to make use of some or all of your Isa allowance for the 2017/18 tax year.
While high interest current accounts and other savings products have taken some of the lustre away from Cash Isas, they, and their investment Isa cousins, remain a hugely popular way to save or invest.
The key attraction of Isas is that every penny held within the account is not liable for tax on savings or investment growth. While the introduction of the personal savings allowance has taken away some of the advantages of a Cash Isa (page 5), there are still reasons to keep your money housed in this tax-free wrapper.
Many people also have several years’ allowances already saved in Isas. Data from HMRC shows that 11.1 million adult Isa accounts were subscribed to in the 2016-17 tax year, with the total cash held in adult accounts standing at £585 billion.
However, much of this money is left in accounts offering a poor rate of interest. By transferring your Isa to a new provider, you could be earning much more on your tax-free savings.
There are more types of Isa on the market than ever before. The classic Cash Isas and Stocks and Shares Isas have been joined in recent years by several new Isas, all designed to help you save or invest tax free.
In this guide, we will look at how the Help to Buy Isa and Lifetime Isa can help you save towards your first home (page 8), plus the options available for investing in the stock market and in the peer-to-peer sector (page 10).
Finally, you can find out how to start a nest egg for your kids with a Junior Isa in our guide on page 15. To get the full guide, head to the nearest WH Smiths or other newsagents to pick up a copy of Moneywise. Alternatively you can buy a copy online of the latest edition of Moneywise which contains the Easy Isa Guide 2018.
However, the most important thing to remember with Isas is that if you don’t use it, you lose it. Your annual allowance resets on 6 April, whether you’ve maxed out your allowance or not.
Your £20,000 adult Isa allowance for the 2017/18 tax year runs out on 5 April 2018, so read on to find out how you can take advantage before the new tax year starts.
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Why Do I Get So Many Credit Card Offers in the Mail?
It may not feel like it as you stuff a new batch of junk mail into the “to shred” pile, but having a mailbox flooded with preapproved credit card offers can be a good sign.
Credit card issuers routinely send attractive card offers to consumers with good to excellent credit. Therefore, when you receive these types of offers in your mailbox, it usually means credit card issuers believe you to be a good credit risk and that they want to do business with you.
Why Card Issuers Mail Those Preapproved Offers
If you receive preapproved offers in the mail, you’re certainly not alone. Credit card issuers are always hunting for new customers who meet their qualification criteria. Billions of promotional letters — a.k.a. preapproved offers of credit — are mailed out by credit card issuers every year.
Why do card issuers mail so many preapproved offers of credit? Because it works. By prescreening applicants, card issuers can, for the most part, avoid advertising to people who are likely to be turned down for their product. The result is a much smarter, more cost-effective and targeted advertising campaign.
How Prescreening Works
Selling your data is the primary way the three credit bureaus make money. Credit reports are probably the most universally recognized “product” the credit bureaus sell. Yet, there are several other ways the credit bureaus can profit off the sale of your information.
Prescreened lists are another revenue generator for the credit bureaus. So how does prescreening work? When a credit card issuer wishes to purchase a prescreened list of consumers for prospecting purposes, they begin by providing one of the credit bureaus with what’s called “selection criteria.” The card issuer might, for example, want to purchase a list of consumers (names and addresses) who meet requirements such as:
- Residing in a specific state
- Credit score of 720 or higher
- No late payments on file in the past 24 months
- No bankruptcy present on credit reports
If your credit information matches the card issuer’s selection criteria, then a preapproved offer of credit may find its way into your mailbox in the not-so-distant future.
Does Prescreening Hurt Your Credit Scores?
That prescreening process does not harm your credit scores in any way. Yes, a portion of your credit information may be accessed during the prescreening process and, yes, a promotional inquiry may be posted on your credit reports.
Such inquiries, however, are known as “soft inquiries.” They don’t have any impact on your credit scores. In fact, only you can see them… not any lenders, and not any credit scoring systems.
How to Stop Promotional Inquiries
Preapproved credit card offers might be a good sign that your credit is healthy — and they can even a source of juicy signup bonuses. But that doesn’t mean they’re welcome in your mailbox. Nobody loves junk mail.
Even though prescreening doesn’t harm your credit scores, you have the right to prevent your credit information from being accessed for prospecting purposes. Whether you don’t like the idea of credit card issuers (or others) being able to access your information without prior consent, or you simply hate junk mail piling up or the ecological waste it creates, you can put a stop to it.
You can opt out of receiving future preapproved offers by visiting OptOutPrescreen.com. Fill out a simple form online and you can opt out for five years. You can also print and mail in a request if you wish to opt out permanently. If you ever change your mind, the same website will allow you to opt back in as well.
There’s an additional benefit to opting out if you choose to do so: Fewer credit card offers in your mailbox means fewer credit card offers that can be stolen by fraudsters. And while opting out certainly won’t prevent you from being a victim of fraud, it will at least reduce your exposure.
Related Articles:
- Use a Credit Freeze to Stop Identity Thieves Cold
- The Best Credit Card Signup Bonus Offers Right Now
- What Your Credit Report Says About You Behind Your Back (and to Whom)
The post Why Do I Get So Many Credit Card Offers in the Mail? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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Find the Right Sling or Carrier to Put Baby on Board — And on Budget
When I had my first baby, Rose, in 2015, I found that I never seemed to achieve anything — I was regularly stuck on the couch when she fell asleep. I had registered for a couple of baby carriers before she was born, but it wasn’t until I was alone with her that I realized how useful a carrier would be in my everyday life.
Using a baby carrier, I was able to get things done more easily. Grocery shopping can be cumbersome when you’re lugging an infant seat, but tuck your baby into a ring sling and you can easily maneuver the aisles. Going for a family walk is much easier with your baby in a soft structured carrier (SSC) than when pushing a heavy stroller around.
I quickly found that I couldn’t live without a baby carrier… but I could live without the high price tag that often accompanied them.
Finding an Affordable Baby Carrier
Once you’re aware of the world of baby carriers, you’ll quickly learn that some of them are on par with collectors’ items. Tula, for instance, makes SSCs in a variety of patterns and materials, and produces small numbers of each pattern. That means that a carrier that originally cost $139 can sell for over $200 — much more for an in-demand pattern. Mothers all over the country go nuts for these things — I saw some for sale in Facebook groups for $500, or even over $1,000.
Luckily, there are ways to find a quality baby carrier that falls within your budget, even if your initial research shows otherwise.
First of all, you need to know what to look for. To ensure that the carrier you choose is safe, check to make sure it’s been tested by the Baby Carrier Industry Alliance. This organization is also a good resource if you want to learn more about babywearing and how to safely wear your baby.
Try to stick to recognizable names. Brands like Tula, Ergobaby and Lillebaby have great ratings from their customers. These carriers tend to run a little on the expensive side when you buy them new (typically around $139 to $180), but you can often find them on sale from manufacturers or buy second-hand from local babywearing Facebook groups. Unlike car seats, it’s perfectly fine to buy a used baby carrier, as long as you inspect it well and make sure there are no loose seams or rips.
If you want to buy new but can’t afford to spend $100 or more, cheaper brands like Eddie Bauer and Infantino offer affordable carriers in the $20 to $50 range.
Types of Carriers
Another way to save money on a baby carrier is to consider your needs and buy accordingly. Different types of baby carriers are useful for each phase in your child’s life.
Mei Tais
An SSC is a great, long-lasting option, but you can find better deals on a slightly different type of carrier, called a mei tai.
These are similar in style to SSCs, but they have ties to wrap around your body rather than a buckle to secure the carrier to you. These wraps are a great option that might suit your tastes and budget, but they come with a learning curve that can be tricky to master.
Mei tais and SSCs are typically good for babies. You might find that your carrier of choice has a minimum weight, but you can typically buy infant inserts for these carriers that allow you to carry your baby from a younger age. SSCs also come in toddler sizes, so you can continue to wear your child for longer if she’ll allow it (Rose would not).
Ring Slings, Woven Wraps and Stretchy Wraps
Ring slings and woven wraps are both good to use through toddlerhood. Stretchy wraps and ring slings are good for the newborn stage, as you can keep baby close by and can even use them to facilitate skin-to-skin bonding.
But stretchy wraps like the Moby and Boba should only be used in the first four to six months of life as they are less supportive as your baby gets heavier, according to U.K.-based babywearing consultant Mirjam Brockmann.
Try Before You Buy
Not all carriers are the same, even if they are the same style. You might fall in love with a particular carrier, only to find it uncomfortable when it comes time to wear your baby.
Rather than buying based on looks, try as many carriers on as possible before making your decision — preferably with your baby in tow. Just as you might prefer one carrier over another, your baby might hate the one you like and love the one you hate.
The best way to try on as many carriers as possible is to hook up with your local babywearing group. You can do this on Babywearing International’s website, but if you don’t see a location near you, that doesn’t mean there are no groups nearby — it might just mean your closest group isn’t affiliated with the organization. For example, Babywearing International shows the closest chapter to me is in Cincinnati, Ohio, but I found a more convenient babywearing group in Dayton, Ohio, through Facebook.
Temper Your Expectations
As a new mother, I quickly found myself obsessing over all the baby carriers I wanted, but in reality all I needed was a ring sling for the newborn stage and an SSC for when Rose was older. We carried her in the latter until she was 2, and still use it on occasion if we’re out for a walk and she gets tired. Our carrier of choice was a Lillebaby, as we found it the most comfortable
There are plenty of options for finding a baby carrier that will fit your budget. To find the best resources in your area, join a mom group or ask a friend who might be in-the-know. Once you’ve found the right people to help you, the rest of your journey to babywearing will be much easier.
Catherine Hiles lusted for months over a hard-to-find Tula carrier with unicorns and rainbows on it, only to find it didn’t fit her well once she got her hands on one. Since then, she stuck with her basic carriers, which got her through baby- and young-toddlerhood very well.
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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