The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged Wednesday but noted that inflation is nearing its 2 percent target rate after years of remaining undesirably low.
Source CBNNews.com https://ift.tt/2w3qlqh
الأربعاء، 2 مايو 2018
Dear Abby’s Advice to Aspiring Journalists: Apply for This $5k Scholarship
If you’re looking for help paying for college, here’s a scholarship opportunity you might be interested in.
Jeanne Phillips, the writer behind the well-known advice column “Dear Abby” and the daughter of the original Dear Abby, wants to award a $5,000 scholarship to an aspiring writer or journalist.
And because this scholarship is offered by the queen of columnists, this contest is open only to students who write bylined general-interest, editorial or specialized columns that appear in either print or online editions of college publications.
Basically, if you’re a columnist for your college’s newspaper, you could win $5,000 to help pay for your tuition, fees or textbooks.
And if you’re on the hunt for other scholarship opportunities, be sure to like The Penny Hoarder College page on Facebook. We post awesome new scholarship opportunities there whenever we find them!
Win $5,000 in the 2018 Dear Abby College Columnist Scholarship Contest
Here’s how to enter to win $5,000 from the 2018 Dear Abby College Columnist Scholarship Contest and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists Education Foundation.
Amount awarded: $5,000
Number of scholarships awarded: One
To qualify for this scholarship, you must:
- Be an undergraduate student (seniors included).
- Write bylined general-interest, editorial or specialized columns for a college publication.
To apply, applicants must:
- Fill out the entry form located here.
- Submit copies and links to three bylined columns published between August 15, 2017 and June 15, 2018.
Scholarship deadline: June 29, 2018.
You can read the rest of the official rules and guidelines here.
If you’re looking for even more scholarships to apply for, be sure to check out our list of 100 scholarships that will help you pay for college.
Grace Schweizer is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/2rfLLuI
Can You Hear Me Now? Verizon Is Hiring Remote Customer Service Reps in TX
Verizon is hiring full-time, work-from-home customer service representatives. Applicants must live within 90 minutes of the call center in Irving, Texas.
The pay isn’t specified, but customer service reps for Verizon make an average of $19 per hour, according to Glassdoor salaries.
The job starts on either June 5 or June 19 and requires 12 weeks of training. The training schedule will be split into two sections:
- Week 1-5 — Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Week 6-12 — Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
If you live outside the area or you just aren’t interested in this type of gig, that’s OK. You can check out our Jobs page on Facebook for other work-from-home opportunities.
Remote Customer Service Representative at Verizon
Pay: Not specified
Responsibilities include:
- Troubleshooting and resolving device, billing and service concerns
- Upselling services to customers
- Building customer relationships
Applicants for this position must have:
- An associate’s degree or at least one year of work experience
- The ability to report to the call center in Irving, Texas, within 90 minutes
- Flexibility to work nights, split shifts, weekends and holidays
- A dedicated, quiet workspace
- Internet with a direct connection to a cable or fiber modem
Nice-to-haves:
- Previous customer service or billing experience
- Previous experience working from home
Apply here for the Customer Service Representative job at Verizon.
Kaitlyn Blount is a junior staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/2FBQPi5
This Remote Transcription Job Might Just Make You Feel Like a Detective
Net Transcripts, a provider of transcription services related to law enforcement and criminal justice, is looking for people to work-from-home as independent contractors.
You can accept as few or as many transcription orders as you want, so applicants seeking both full- and part-time work are encouraged to apply.
But if transcribing isn’t really your thing (or your typing skills are similar to Flash the Sloth from Zootopia), no worries! We’re always posting work-from-home opportunities on our Jobs page on Facebook.
Law Enforcement Transcription Jobs at Net Transcripts
To work as a transcriptionist for Net Transcripts, you must be a U.S. citizen and current resident of any state except California or Massachusetts, and you must pass a criminal background check.
Pay: Not specified
Responsibilities include:
- Transcribing audio content related to law enforcement, such as criminal investigations
- Turning around transcription orders in one to five business days
- Typing and proofing documents to at least 98% accuracy
Applicants for this position must have:
- Previous multi-speaker transcription service experience
- The ability to type 80 words per minute
- Strong grammar and proofreading skills
- A high-speed internet connection
- A PC with a transcription software package
- Microsoft Word and Excel knowledge
- Good quality headphones and a foot pedal for audio playback
Net Transcripts wants people with legal transcription experience. Law enforcement or court reporting transcription is a big plus. If your experience is with medical transcription only, your application will not be considered.
Apply here for the law enforcement transcription position at Net Transcripts.
Kaitlyn Blount is a junior staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/2seerI3
Dog Days: Get Paid $20/Hr to Take Pics of Pups With This Summer Internship
But I’m here to tell you that I’ve found an internship opportunity that is not only paid, but doesn’t involve coffee runs for the boss.
That is, unless your new boss — or should I say bosses — like to slurp up puppuccinos; then you might have to make a Starbucks trip or two.
The Points Guy, a travel website, has launched a search for a social media intern. The mission is to work for three adorable French bulldogs named Miles (chief barketing officer), Hootie (barketing director) and Swisher (barketing assistant).
Known as The Points Pups, they’re in need of a doggo-lovin’, social media-savvy intern who can work in the New York City office this summer.
The intern will be in charge of developing the pups’ social media following, creating pet travel content and researching first-hand what it’s like traveling with pets, all to the tune of $20 per hour.
That’s right, not only will you be paid to hang out with adorable canines all summer, you get to go on trips with them too.
“Pet travel is gaining so much momentum and we really want to bring awareness to how to do it right,” says Angelica Catalano, a company spokesperson, via email. “We’re so excited for the social media intern to not only bond with our adorable office mascots and create amazing social media content, but to help our editorial team build out a pet travel report that will dive deep into requirements and improvements needed in this growing travel space.”
Applicants should be able to work a flexible schedule of 25 and 40 hours a week and, of course, be willing to travel for work when needed.
Major photography skills are needed, too, since you’ll be snapping pics of the pups all day for their Instagram account, which, by the way, already has over 11,000 followers. Here’s a pro tip: Portrait Mode is your best friend.
How to Become The Points Pups Social Media Intern
Ready to apply for this dream job? Check out the requirements:
- Must love dogs (Duh)
- Plenty of social media experience (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook)
- Pawsitively awesome photography skills so you can get all of the Insta-likes
- The ability to work out the NYC office
- At least 18 years old
- Veterinary education experience is a plus
If you fit the bill and you’re ready to commit your summer to three wonderful doggos, send your resume and a short video explaining why you’re the best candidate to:
thepointspups@thepointsguy.com.
The deadline for applications is May 15, and the lucky human will be announced before Memorial Day weekend.
And if you land the gig and do a stellar job all summer, you might even get a chance to join The Points Guy staff permanently.
“Social media continues to be a growing part of the company and the chosen intern would have a great opportunity to become an integral part of the team,” says Catalan. “Ultimately, Miles, Hootie and Swisher would make the executive decision.”
Kaitlyn Blount is a junior staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She has a minimum of 742 slo-mo videos of her pups on her phone at all times.
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.
source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/2JPruE2
Personal Finance 101: How Do I Even Stat With Saving For Retirement?
Mindy writes in:
I know I am supposed to be saving for retirement but I don’t even know where to start. I went to the HR office to ask but the people there just immediately start tossing terms that I don’t understand and Wikipedia does the same.
This is a great question. I’m going to go through this as slowly as I possibly can, in simple language. For some readers, this might be overly fundamental and boring, but I’m trying here to not lose anyone who might be curious about saving for retirement but doesn’t know where to start. I am choosing to simplify things in a few places and focusing on the big picture rather than overwhelming details.
So, let’s get started.
Saving for retirement is really important for most people. Without some retirement savings, people have to rely on Social Security, Medicare, a pension (which is basically paychecks from your employer once you’re retired – most people aren’t lucky enough to have one), their families, and charity. Most of the time, people who don’t have savings keep working until they literally can’t work any more. That’s not a future that a lot of people want.
The first thing you need to know about retirement savings is that any time you put money aside anywhere for the purpose of using that money when you retire, you’re saving for retirement. If you stuff cash in your mattress and intend to start pulling it out when you’re 65, you’re saving for retirement. If you go down to your local bank and put money in a savings account with the intent of pulling it out when you’re 65, you’re saving for retirement. The act of putting money aside for retirement is the single most important part of retirement savings. Everything else is less important; it’s just details and ways to get a little more value for your retirement savings dollar.
The government recognizes that this is a big and important financial goal for a lot of people, so they’ve done a few things to help out anyone who wants to save for retirement. Mostly, they’ve created a few special kinds of accounts for people to put their retirement savings in. These accounts come with advantages, mostly in the form of causing you to pay less taxes and thus keep more money in your pocket.
The most common account, and the one that most people brush up against in their retirement search, is the 401(k). Some employers call it a 403(b) or a 457 or a TSP or other names, but they’re all more or less the same thing. If you ask your human resources officer at work about a “401 K,” they’ll know which particular variation is available at your workplace, if any.
Think of a 401(k) as being like a special kind of savings account. The only difference is that money in a normal 401(k) goes into the account directly from your paycheck before taxes are taken out. Let’s say you make $10 an hour and work 40 hours, so your weekly check is $400. Normally, without a 401(k), you would have taxes taken out on that $400 – if they take out 10%, that means your take-home pay is $360, because they took out $40 for taxes. Makes sense, right?
Well, let’s say you choose to put 10% in that 401(k) each paycheck. That means that instead of figuring out taxes on $400, they figure out taxes on $360. 10% of $360 is $36. So, if you’re putting 10% in your 401(k), first that $40 is taken out of your check and moved into the 401(k) and then 10% of what’s left – $36 – is taken for taxes. Your take home check is now $324, but you’re putting $40 away for retirement. You’re actually paying $4 less in taxes this way – it goes home with your paycheck instead.
What you need to know here is this: when you contribute to a 401(k), your paycheck will go down, but it won’t go down as much as the amount you contribute.
What’s the catch? How can that be right? The trick with a 401(k) is that you’ll have to pay income taxes on that money in retirement. When you take money out of that account in retirement, it’s just like a paycheck and you’ll have to pay taxes on that money then. However, when you’re retired, you’ll probably be paying a lower tax rate, so you’ll still save money in the long run.
Some employers make a 401(k) into an even better deal by offering matching contributions. They’ll put an additional $0.50 or $1 into your account for every dollar you put in. If this is available to you, don’t turn it down because it’s free money for retirement.
So, a 401(k) is just a program operated by your employer that lets you save money for retirement by taking it directly out of your paycheck. There’s a bit of a tax advantage for doing this compared to just saving it yourself. Plus, some employers offer additional bonuses or match your contributions.
Next, let’s talk about what “Roth” means. If you see an account with the word “Roth” before it, it means that it deals entirely in “take home” dollars, after taxes are already paid on it. Some employers offer a Roth 401(k) option.
Let’s go back to that $400 example. You earn $400. You want to contribute $40 to to your Roth 401(k) at work each paycheck. First, taxes are taken out of that paycheck as above, leaving you with $360, then the Roth 401(k) contributions are taken out, leaving you with $320 that you take home.
You’ll probably notice that contributing $40 per paycheck to a Roth 401(k) leaves you with less money in your paycheck ($320 in this example) than contributing $40 per paycheck to a normal 401(k) ($324 in this example). What gives?
It’s because of that word “Roth.” Roth 401(k) plans allow you to take out all of your contributions tax free when you’re retired. You will never, ever have to pay taxes on that money, provided you simply wait until retirement. You don’t have to pay money on the interest earned while it sits in the account, either! It’s all tax free when you take it out. You just pull the money out when you’re retired and don’t worry abut the taxes because there are none.
Regardless of whether you’re considering a Roth 401(k) or a regular 401(k), you’re almost definitely saving at least some money on taxes. That’s the advantage of such accounts. Now, which one you choose is another matter, but I am of the belief that it’s almost impossible to say which one is “better” because no one knows what tax rates will look like in 20 or 30 years. So, you really shouldn’t worry too much about it. My gut instinct is that for most people making under $100K, Roth accounts are probably better, but that’s simply a feeling.
What if your workplace doesn’t offer any sort of account like this? Your best option is probably a Roth IRA, which is kind of like a do-it-yourself version of a Roth 401(k) as described earlier. You can sign up for a Roth IRA with many, many different investing firms just like you would sign up for a bank account (I personally use Vanguard for mine – there are many other good companies out there, though, like Fidelity, for example) and you deposit money much like you would into a savings account. Today, this is usually done electronically – you sign up to have money automatically taken out of your checking account once a week or once a month and put into your Roth IRA. Just as with the Roth 401(k), when you reach retirement age, you can take money out of the Roth IRA completely tax free, even on the money you gained while it was in the account.
The important thing to note here is that with all of these different options (which really aren’t all that different – they’re all just accounts), you are given a lot of options once the money is actually deposited in the account. You can choose what the company managing your account does with that money, and it’s often that point that people struggle with. You’re given the option to invest in stocks, bonds, and many other things, and the more you study those options, the deeper the rabbit hole seems to go.
First of all, the simple act of putting the money in the account is the most important thing you’ll do, period. What option you choose is of far, far less importance than the choice to simply save for retirement at all. Do not get stressed out over the options. You basically can’t make a wrong choice. Think of it as being like a menu at a restaurant where everything’s pretty good – you can basically close your eyes and point at the menu and you’ve got a worthwhile meal.
If you’re not sure what to do, the easy answer is to just choose a Target Retirement fund. Figure out what year you will be 70 (take your birth year and add 70) and then choose a Target Retirement fund that most closely matches that year. Let’s say you were born in 1983. Add 70 to that, giving you 2053. You’d probably want to choose a Target Retirement 2055 fund. Put all of your money into your chosen fund and don’t worry about it.
Obviously, you can keep going on and on and on and on with details about what account is best and what investment to choose. The truth is that the differences between them don’t matter a whole lot unless you have a very large balance in the account. It’s honestly not worth worrying about it, especially if worrying about it means that you wait even a day to start contributing.
I want to finish by repeating what I said earlier:
The act of putting money aside for retirement is the single most important part of retirement savings. Everything else is less important; it’s just details and ways to get a little more value for your retirement savings dollar.
Just save. Don’t get hung up on the details too much. If your employer has a 401(k) account or something like it, sign up. Contribute what you can afford, especially if your employer matches it. If you don’t have a 401(k) or something like it at work, sign up for a Roth IRA on your own – it’s really not hard – and contribute a little each week out of your savings account. When you decide what investment option to choose, choose a Target Retirement fund. That’s all you really need to do. Every little bit helps.
Good luck!
The post Personal Finance 101: How Do I Even Stat With Saving For Retirement? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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How to Monitor Your Competitors With These 10 Helpful Tools
Your business doesn’t operate in a vacuum.
There are countless outside factors that influence whether or not you’ll turn a profit. Your competition plays a huge role in the success of your business.
That’s why it’s so important for you to take the proper steps to gain a competitive edge on other brands in your industry. But, as I’m sure you’ve quickly realized, this is much easier said than done.
The ease of access to the Internet has amplified your competition at an exponential rate.
You’re no longer just competing with a few other local or regional businesses. You’ve got to worry about national and global brands as well.
What makes your company unique? What differentiating factors help you stand out? Why would a customer buy from you over your competitors?
These questions are difficult to answer, especially if you aren’t constantly researching the competition. But with so many other brands to keep an eye on, this can seem like a daunting task.
Not to worry. There are plenty of online tools to help you keep tabs on your competitors. I’ve narrowed down this list to the top 10 I found to be the most helpful.
If you try these out, it will be much easier for you to brand and market your business, taking into account what your competitors are doing.
1. Google Alerts
No list of online monitoring tools would be complete without Google Alerts.
This tool is about as easy to use as it gets. Simply sign into your Google account to get started. If you don’t have one, it will take only a couple of minutes to sign up.
Next, input the names of your competitors. Google takes care of the rest.
You’ll get an email report every time a competitor on your alert list gets mentioned online. You can set it up for links and keywords as well.
It all depends on what you want to track.
Google Alerts is great because it’s free to use. You’ll get notified when your competitors are mentioned so you can stay up to date on the latest information.
2. Social Mention
We know 71% of small businesses use social media to engage with their customers. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.
That’s why Social Mention is one of my favorite monitoring tools.
It’s super easy to use. Simply search for terms, keywords, or the names of specific brands, and the platform will show you what people are talking about across social networks and blogs.
The tool will tell you how often the brand gets mentioned as well.
This is a great opportunity for you to see what actual people are saying about your competitors in real time. There are plenty of ways for you to use this to your advantage.
If the comments are negative, you can try to avoid these errors yourself. You may even be able to exploit those mistakes in a marketing campaign, aiming to steal their customers.
But what if you see nothing but positive comments from people talking about your competitors? Don’t panic just yet. You can still benefit from this knowledge.
Figure out what your competitors are doing well and try to emulate it. What do they do best? Find a way to do it better.
3. Instapaper
What happens when you see something online about your competitors?
Do you instantly drop everything to read it?
I doubt it. You’ve got a business to run. While competitive analysis is important, it can’t take priority over everything else you’re doing throughout the day.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow up on this information later. You can use tools like Instapaper to stay organized.
Instapaper behaves like a much more advanced version of a typical bookmark for web browsers. One of the best parts of this tool is you can access saved articles without an Internet connection.
So now, if you stumble upon some new information, a blog, or an article written by or about your competitors, you can save it and read it later.
The tool automatically optimizes the text so you won’t have to worry about messy scrolling or zooming the way you would have to on mobile sites. You can even adjust the font, size, spacing, and margins to your liking.
This tool is available for desktop and mobile devices. It doesn’t matter whether you use Apple or Android, they’ve got a version for you.
You can sync saved articles across all your devices as well. It’s perfect for those of you who want one place to conveniently read all articles about your competitors.
4. Monitor Backlinks
In addition to tracking your competitors’ names and social mentions, you should also be tracking their backlinks.
Backlinks play a huge role in website traffic and search engine optimization. That’s why in the past, I’ve given you tips for consistently building backlinks on a weekly basis.
If your competitors are smart, they will be trying to build as many backlinks as possible too. That’s why the Monitor Backlinks tool is crucial to your competitive analysis initiative.
This tool can help you figure out which competitor domains have the highest and lowest rankings.
It’s great information to help you learn which pages on their sites are getting the most traffic. You can also compare their results directly to your own website.
Here’s another reason why the Monitor Backlinks tool is something you need to take advantage of. It can help you build relationships with other websites.
Sometimes, backlinks happen by accident. A website or blogger may need to find an example or use online research to help add credibility to an article. So they search the web and find your competition.
Other times, your competitors may have relationships with certain websites. There could be some sort of arrangement that gives sites an incentive for linking one of your competitor’s pages.
Regardless of the case, reach out to those sites directly. Ask if you can be used as an example or resource in place of your competitors. Who knows, they may just go for it.
There are so many different opportunities for you to use this tool to your advantage. They offer a 30-day free trial, so it’s worth giving it a try.
5. SpyFu
With a name like SpyFu, it’s no surprise that this tool is a top choice for spying on your competitors.
Here’s how it works. After you search for the domain of your competitors, you’ll see where they’ve been on Google for the past 11 years.
This tool gives you access to keywords they bought on Adwords, all of their organic rankings, and each variation of their ads as well.
You’ll also have access to the success of their campaigns. Now you’ll know how much they are paying for each keyword and how many clicks they are getting.
As a result, you’ll be able to make better decisions when it comes to your own PPC campaigns. Don’t waste money on keywords that aren’t working for your competitors.
SpyFu also gives you access to keywords, backlinks, and content from your competitors that have a higher SEO ranking than you. This can help you see how you stack up against your biggest competitors.
Now you can make the necessary adjustments to improve your SEO rank and generate more leads. This will help give you the competitive edge you’ve been looking for.
6. WhatRunsWhere
The WhatRunsWhere tool specializes in advertisements.
You’ll be able to figure out how successful your competitor’s ads are. Based on this information, you can decide whether or not you want to replicate their winning strategies or avoid unprofitable campaigns.
Ads are constantly changing. It all depends on the goals of a company and what the consumers are demanding.
With WhatRunsWhere, you will know if your competitors find a new marketing strategy that works.
You’ll be able to see analytics and reports of the most current digital advertising landscape based on networks, devices, location, and time.
Unlike some of the other tools on our list, the WhatRunsWhere package isn’t free. Their most basic package starts at $299 per month.
7. SEMRush
When it comes to keyword analysis tools, SEMRush is a top choice for you to consider.
That’s because they specialize in competitive data analysis. Here’s what you need to do.
Simply type in the home page of your competitor’s website. SEMRush will get your instant information about their rank, traffic, ad keywords, and organic keywords.
All of this information is neatly organized into a graphic report that’s easy to read and understand. It’s a great way to digest and analyze data when it’s displayed this way.
You’ll also be able to see a side-by-side comparison of different domains so you can compare yourself to your competitors or compare two competitors to each other.
SEMRush can also help you generate keyword ideas for your own site as well, which can give you a competitive edge.
8. Alexa
As you may know, Alexa has features that rank websites and show information related to their traffic. But not everyone realizes that Alexa also has competitor analysis tools.
Most of the tools on our list so far require you to manually input information about your competitors. This can include their names, keywords, or domains.
But what happens if you don’t know who your competitors are? Alexa can help you identify which websites are your biggest competitors.
You can also compare your site to the benchmarks in your industry to see how you stack up against everyone else. Find out what you need to do to improve your rankings.
Alexa can also track different sites for you. You’ll get real-time information about how these websites are performing.
Another bonus feature of this tool is the partnership opportunities. You can discover websites that would be a good fit for guest blogging. This can also be used for influencer marketing and other advertisements.
Get connected with these opportunities before your competition has the chance to.
9. Woorank
Woorank offers website reviews and SEO audits for any website. All you need to do is type in a competitor’s website to generate a report.
While the basic version of this tool may be free, you’ll want to upgrade your membership to get all of the benefits it has to offer. The monthly plans range from $50 to $250, depending on the features you’re looking for.
You can compare your website to all your competitors’ sites from one dashboard. The tool helps you monitor things such as:
- keywords
- users
- bounce rates
- page views
- session durations
- new visits
You’ll also have access to social media reports. The reports are displayed on a week-to-week basis, so you can see how your site compares to the competition over time.
If your ranking continues to rise, you’re obviously doing things right and need to continue with your current plan. But if you are starting to decline, it’s time to reevaluate your strategy.
10. iSpionage
If you’re looking for another tool to help you monitor keywords, iSpionage is a top choice to consider.
Their reports will show you how your competition is grouping advertisements, keywords, and landing pages. You’ll be able to see which of these ads are getting the most traffic as well.
Unlike some of the other monitoring tools, iSpionage uses data from Bing and Yahoo in addition to Google, which can give you a more accurate representation of the results.
You’ll be able to identify the most profitable keywords and adjust your strategy based on what your competitors are doing.
iSpionage even shows an estimated monthly budget for your competition’s PPC campaigns.
Conclusion
Competitive analysis is a crucial component in the success of every business across all industries.
This statement holds true for companies both old and new. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to identify the target market of your startup or coming up with an advertising campaign for a brand that’s 20 years old. You need to monitor your competition.
But with so many competitors out there, it can be difficult to keep your eye on all of them.
That’s why you need to use technology. The list of tools I’ve outlined above can be extremely helpful.
I’m not saying you need to use all of them. Many of these tools have similar features.
Some tools focus on specific platforms, like social media, while others put more emphasis on backlinks, keywords, or advertisements.
It all depends on what you’re looking for. Decide how much you want to spend on tools to monitor your competitors and what type of information you want to get in return.
What types of tools does your company use to monitor your competitors?
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Our Comprehensive Stash Review: Will This App Really Make Investing Easier?
If we’re trying to scrape up money for rent each month, how can we afford to invest? Or maybe we do have a little bit of savings established… but why risk it? Plus: How the heck do you start investing?
More and more microinvesting apps are appearing on the personal finance market — and we’re kind of stoked. These apps aim to make investing more inclusive and less intimidating.
Take Stash, for example. It allows you to start investing with as little as $5. Plus, it doesn’t throw you in with the wolves of Wall Street. It walks you through each step, cushioning the intimidation factor.
Want to know whether downloading Stash and striking up an investing account is the right money move for you? To help you make the best choice, we’ve reviewed the app ourselves.
The Penny Hoarder’s Comprehensive Stash Review
Stash is a microinvesting app. That means you’re able to invest small amounts of money into a personally tailored portfolio.
Here’s a little more information about the company itself from its LinkedIn page:
| Headquarters: New York, New York | Co-founders: Brandon Krieg and Ed Robinson |
| Industry: Financial Services | Company Type: Privately Held |
| Year Founded: 2015 | Number of employees: 51 to 200 |
So How Does Stash Invest Work?
Before getting started, let’s go over some housekeeping basics to make sure you’re on board.
| Minimum Investment | $5 |
| Fees | $1 per month for accounts under $5,000 ; 0.25% per year for balances $5,000+ |
| Mobile Access | iPhone app, Android app, U.S. only |
| Withdrawal Rules | Withdraw up to $10,000 a day, as long as the funds have been in your Stash account for at least five days |
| Cancellation Policy | Before canceling, sell your investments. This takes about two business days. |
Good fit?
Signing up with Stash is simple. Visit its website or download the app.
Hey, pssttt… when you sign up through The Penny Hoarder, you’ll receive a $5 bonus after your first investment.
Now that you’ve signed up, connect your bank account and answer a few questions, which will help Stash determine your risk profile: conservative, moderate or aggressive.
Once that’s all set, take a moment to get familiar with the app.
Tap “Learn” on the bottom toolbar, and you’ll gain access to Stash’s investor’s guide. This addresses frequently asked questions, including what exactly you’re investing in (hint: exchange-traded funds, or ETFs), how to choose your first investment and which investments are worth adding to the mix.
Now that you’ve tapped through the guide, you should be feeling a little more comfortable.
Go ahead, and tap “Invest.” This section showcases the various portfolios at your disposal. Categories include:
- “I Believe,” which allows you to invest in causes you might believe in.
- “I Want,” which breaks portfolios down by products and services.
- “I Like,” which features specific interests, like travel.
- “Companies,” which lets you pick and choose specific companies you want to invest in.
If you find a portfolio that piques your interest, read its brief overview, peep the risk level and see a list of the top company holdings. Tap over to the performance section for a visual of how the portfolio has performed in the past.
Take some time perusing these portfolios. It’s actually kind of fun and exciting, and it’s nice to know exactly where you’re investing your money.
Once you choose the portfolios you’d like to invest in, select “Add to Portfolio.” You’ll be prompted to determine how much you want to invest. At this point, you can opt in for a feature called Auto-Stash. This allows you to set how much you’d like to funnel into the investment each week or each month. Start with as little as $5.
Once you’ve got some money tucked into your chosen ETFs, you can check in to see how it’s doing by looking at your portfolio. Your Stash portfolio breaks down your total portfolio value, as well as the total return.
This is a new account we’ve just set up. The total return will illuminate how much money you’ve made, if applicable. Image is for illustrative purpose only.
If you want even more insight into your investing portfolios and habits, check in with your Stash coach, who you’ll find when you tap “Home.” The coach offers investing suggestions and hands out points when you’ve completed a task that betters your portfolio. Of course, whether you take these actions is up to you.
More Stash Features
Stash’s micro-investing platform is its mainstay feature. However, the app has expanded since its inception, offering more ways to make and save money.
Let us outline a few:
- Smart-Save: If you’re less keen on investing and more focused on saving, you can choose to use Stash’s Smart-Save feature. It’ll help you build your savings and earn a little bit of interest.
If you already have a Stash account, log in. Under the “Home” tab, scroll down to find “Smart-Save.” When you opt in to the feature, Stash will start saving your money automatically, based on your spending habits and your income. It’ll only save what you can afford, and if your bank account dips below $100 — or any higher amount you select — it’ll stop withdrawing.
You can get daily alerts via text to see exactly how much you’ve saved. You can turn off Smart-Save at any time.
Please note, the Smart-Save feature is not a savings account offered by a bank. Smart-Save is a feature that may be turned on and connected to the checking account that is linked to your Stash Invest account.
- Real Estate: If you want to invest in real estate but don’t necessarily have a large sum of change to put down, you can invest smaller quantities in real estate investment trusts (REITs). These are funds pooled together from thousands of investors to invest in one property, like a mutual fund.
Stash’s real estate feature makes investing in REITs super simple. Simply log into your Stash account (or sign up here) and start exploring your options.
- Retire allows you to open a traditional IRA or Roth IRA. These options give you a break on taxes. If you’re interested, read more about IRA accounts first.
- Stash also offers custodial accounts, which are investing accounts you can open for anyone under 18.
Is Stash Safe?
Moving on… Is Stash legit? Is Stash a scam?
Yes, the platform is legitimate, and no, it’s not a scam.
Check out its rating on Better Business Bureau: an A-.
Major consumer complaints seem to have stemmed from user error — accounts not being properly shut down. Remember: You can’t just delete the app from your phone and expect to get your money back and for the monthly payments to stop. After all, you’re investing your money, so follow the directions to properly close an account.
If you have any questions the Stash FAQ page can’t answer, the company’s customer service team is pretty good about returning emails and phone calls.
Stash is also safe for your money. When you create an account, you’ll sign up with your username and create a password. You’ll also create a four-digit security code, which you’ll be required to enter each time you open the app. You can set up thumbprint access, too.
Stash Fees: How Much Does It Cost?
Stash costs $1 per month for accounts with balances under $5,000. When your balance reaches $5,000 or more, you’ll instead pay a 0.25% fee each year. That’s a quarter of 1%, by the way, so you’d pay $12.50 a year for a balance of $5,000.
Stash doesn’t pocket commission or take a percentage of your earnings — just those fees.
Pros and Cons
With any app or platform, you’ll find it has its own pros and cons. Here are a few of Stash’s pros and cons:
Pros:
- You’re able to start investing with as little as $5.
- It offers ETFs broken down by category, so you’re able to see exactly what types of companies you’re investing in, and you can make decisions based on your beliefs. The app provides information on each ETF, including its past performance.
- Stash makes investing less intimidating. It walks you through the process, and if there’s ever a term you don’t understand, chances are, Stash’ll explain it.
- The Auto-Stash feature helps you automatically invest as little as $5 each week or month. This helps set your finances to autopilot, so you don’t have to actively deposit money into your account.
- Penny Hoarders get a $5 bonus when you sign up through this link and deposit your first $5.
- You can also save or open a retirement account, and it’ll all be on the same platform. No need to check 10 different apps to keep tabs on your money.
Cons:
- It costs $1 per month to use for balances under $5,000. Yes, that costs less than a coffee — or even a gumball nowadays. But when you compare that to your returns, it might not be worth it. Do note, though, you can get that $5 bonus when you sign up, which is like getting five months free.
- Stash doesn’t send email or push notification updates on your balance. Trust us: We’re not big fans of getting bombarded with these either, but when you have money in an account, it’s nice to keep tabs on it. It’s easy to forget about the money in Stash unless you’ve built a habit of checking the app.
- As with all investing, there’s risk. Even though you’re investing small amounts of money, you’re still playing with the volatility of the stock market, so it’s very possible you could lose money.
Stash App Comparison
If you’re the type of person who wants to study various products before committing to just one, we don’t blame you. Here’s how Stash stacks up against similar microinvesting apps:
| Stash | Acorns (Read our full Acorns review.) | Robinhood | |
| Claim to Fame | Start investing with as little as $5; allows for automation | Rounds purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the change | Invest in the stock market and ETFs for free |
| Fee | $1/month for accounts under $5,000 | $1/month for accounts under $5,000 | A few tiny regulatory trading fees — otherwise, it’s free. |
| Promotions | $5 sign-up bonus through The Penny Hoarder | $5 sign-up bonus through The Penny Hoarder | n/a |
| Required Starting Balance | $5 | $5 | $0 |
| Minimum Balances | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Think Stash could be the perfect way to ease yourself into the investing pond? Get started and claim that $5 bonus.
Carson Kohler (carson@thepennyhoarder.com) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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The One Discount That Won’t Save You Money
Have you ever told yourself you’d go to the gym after just one episode of a TV show, only to end up watching five episodes and then skipping the gym altogether? If so, you’d be exhibiting a type of behavior that economists label “discounting.”
Discounting refers to the fact that we’re wired to highly value the present and care less about what happens in the future. We “discount” the future by placing less emphasis on it. We know that going to the gym will bring benefits, but those don’t come until much later, and after much effort.
Evolutionarily, discounting makes sense. The future was never guaranteed to our ancient ancestors, who lived in a much more dangerous environment. Their survival largely depended on thinking in the now.
But people in today’s advanced societies live, on average, into their late 70s. Given that, discounting can cause us to behave in ways that make our future selves quite upset over the laziness of our past selves.
Why Discounting Is a Problem
Discounting represents one of many cognitive biases that induce us to make poor choices with our money. It’s an especially pernicious bias because it is so prevalent. It rears its head whenever we’re faced with situations that require discipline, planning, and delayed gratification.
I got a chance to speak with Jeff Naecker, an economics professor at Wesleyan University, about the effects of discounting and how we can structure our lives to mitigate its negative consequences. Naecker called discounting “one of the most important applications of behavioral economics in our day to day life.”
To see its effects in action, consider an example from the research literature. One experiment on discounting involved asking subjects a version of the following question: Would you rather have $100 today, or $120 in a week? The majority of people chose the immediate $100.
To most people, a week feels like a long time. Who knows what could happen? They want that cash in hand as soon as possible, even though waiting just a bit longer would net them 20% more money – a return any investor would envy.
The mindset of wanting the $100 immediately is analogous to the example laid out at the start of this article. At the moment you finish watching that first TV show, you really value watching the next one. After all, that episode will provide an enjoyable hit of dopamine right away. So, you keep watching, foregoing whatever future benefits you might have gained from going to the gym.
Now that we know the problem, what can we do to stop it?
Commit to Something
I’ve found that the best way to hack this cognitive bias is by making myself pre-commit to stopping points when I engage in activities that I know can be all consuming. In essence, I make rules and stick to them. If I want to watch less TV, I will make a rule that I can only watch one episode per night, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Hard and fast stopping points are so helpful because we are always going to be untrustworthy in the future. That sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. Discounting ensures that you are going to really want to watch that next episode, play that next level, or take your whole paycheck instead of putting aside a set percentage into your 401(k).
Naecker noted that while discipline on its own is commendable, it’s not going to work well unless you take it a step further. “Commitment must have a well defined incentive,” he said. “Money works well for most people, but you want to use whatever is valuable to you as the incentive, whether that’s money, losing access to resources, or losing out on a prize.”
Money is very motivating to me, so it’s clear that my efforts at self discipline would be improved if I imposed a fine on myself every time I watched too much TV. Or, if you’re addicted to your phone, you might want to use access to your phone as an incentive. You could promise to give up your phone for a week if you don’t meet your goals.
Another compelling bit of research out of Harvard and MIT shows how effective commitment can be in changing discounting behavior, specifically in a financial setting. The researchers offered 700 clients of a bank the chance to use a product that would purposely restrict access to their savings accounts. Only 202 accepted, which is understandable, because who wants a bunch of New England nerds meddling with their money?
Well, the group that agreed to be restricted apparently understood the power of a commitment contract. After 12 months, those who used the restrictive technology had 81% more money in their savings accounts than the group that could raid their accounts at will.
Use Your Imagination
I first learned about the power of imagining the future as a way to curb bad habits while reading the neuroscience book “The Hungry Brain.” It shows that if we take some time before eating to visualize how we will feel when we’re done with the meal, we tend to eat healthier than we normally would. An honest visualization will reveal that our future self will feel better after eating broccoli as opposed to Cheetos, for instance.
Visualization has been shown to help us be better long-term planners, and not just with our diets. The same idea applies to financial matters. There’s a reason it’s so effective to ask yourself a series of questions before making any purchase. Two of the most important questions are, “Do I need it?” and, “Will this improve my life enough to be worth the cost?”
Both of those questions force you to slow down and actually imagine yourself in the future. Sure, your current self really wants that shiny new iPad, but you might want it less once you take the time to imagine yourself struggling with bills the next month, having put yourself further into debt just to buy a really big version of your phone.
Through imagination, you can know yourself better, and through that knowing you can improve your ability to counteract your innate preference to discount the future.
Summing Up
When battling the effects of discounting, it will help to have defined incentives, a visualization practice, and a commitment. Those tools can help tie us to the masts when the siren calls of procrastination get strong.
In order to keep yourself focused on discounting the future as little as possible, you might want to make use of an online habit-building tool that utilizes commitment contracts. Your future self will thank you.
Related Reading
- Instant Gratification: How You Can Beat the Cycle
- Making Long-Term Goals Matter in Your Day-to-Day Life
- Understanding This Marketing Trick Can Help You Avoid Impulse Buys
The post The One Discount That Won’t Save You Money appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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