Put Down the Cellphone, Keep Your Eyes on the Road to Win This $10K Contest

Being a safe driver pays off. You can avoid costly auto repairs and medical bills. You may be able to get a discount on your auto insurance for a good driving record. But wouldn’t winning $10,000 for your safe driving habits be an even better reward?

Right now, drivers in San Antonio, Texas, have the chance to cash in on their impeccable driving skills. USAA, a national insurance company that serves military members and their families, recently launched a safe driver contest in support of the city’s efforts to eliminate road fatalities.

To participate, drivers living in the San Antonio area must download a free app (available on the App Store or Google Play) on their smartphones. The app detects driving habits when the phone is in the car and turned on. Contest participants must be at least 18 years old but do not need to be insured through USAA, which is headquartered in the Texas city.

Drivers don’t interact with the app while driving. It just runs in the background, collecting data about speed, acceleration, braking, turning corners and phone distraction. The app scores drivers at the end of their trips.

San Antonio’s Safest Driver Contest started June 11 and runs until Sept. 3. Grand prizes of $10,000 will be given to the highest-scored driver in each of three categories: overall safest driver, safest military driver and least distracted driver. Drivers must enter the contest by July 9 to be eligible for the grand prize.

Every two weeks during the contest period, USAA will also give out nine $500 prizes — to the three highest-scored drivers in each of the three categories. Drivers must have made at least 10 trips within an entry period to be in the running for any prize.

Even those who aren’t stellar drivers have a chance to win some cash. Every driver who downloads the app will be entered into a random drawing to win a grand prize of $2,000 or one of 18 prizes of $150 each. Three people will be selected to win $150 every two weeks during the 12-week contest period.

San Antonio residents can also submit one write-in sweepstakes entry without downloading the safe-driving app. See the official rules and frequently asked questions for more details.

Nicole Dow 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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Do You Sell Items on Etsy? Expect a Transaction Fee Hike Starting in July

Etsy sellers can expect change, and as a result, they’ll find less of it in their pocket.

The e-commerce site through which people can sell handcrafted merchandise announced on Thursday that it's raising the seller transaction fee to support new initiatives to grow the platform.

As of July 16, nearly 2 million Etsy sellers will see transaction fees increase from 3.5% to 5%; the fee will also apply to shipping costs. For example, an item sold for $30 will have a transaction fee of $1.65 plus a $3 shipping fee.  

Etsy says that the money generated from the fee increase will help fund its efforts to attract more buyers to the website and build new suites of tools to help sellers manage their businesses. You can find out more about the new seller services here.

As of March 31, more than 34 million shoppers used Etsy to purchase artisan items during the previous year. The company spent $78 million on marketing in 2017 and says it plans to spend more than $110 million this year.

Matt Reinstetle is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. His buddy once used Etsy to find him a Christmas gift — a 3-D-printed replica of Kylo Ren’s Lightsaber from “Star Wars.”

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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Forget the Piggy Bank: Here Are 6 Better Ways to Save for Your Kid’s Future

File this under “Things You Already Know” — kids are expensive.

The cost of raising a child from birth through age 17 is roughly $233,610. And this figure doesn’t even factor in a college education.

Four years at a private university will cost a whopping $303,000 18 years from now, according to CNBC. (Before you pick your jaw up off the floor, know that a public university won’t save you all that much money: In 2036, your child will need roughly $184,000 to collect their diploma.)

These numbers can be downright scary. But you have options to start saving for your child’s future today, no matter what your budget.

Ways to Save For Your Kids

Money Girl host Laura Adams explores several different opportunities in “6 Ways to Save and Invest Money for Kids.” In the blog post and accompanying podcast, Adams outlines six ways to save money, whether you want to open a college savings plan or start a rainy-day fund.

1. 529 College Savings Plans

If you think higher education is in your child’s future, consider a 529 savings plan. You make contributions and invest the money with this plan, and funds can be used at any accredited school in the U.S. When the time comes to pay for college-related expenses such as tuition, book, and room and board, you can withdraw this money tax-free.

Anyone can use a 529 savings plan (no annual income restrictions!) and you can change the 529 beneficiary to another family member without incurring a tax penalty.

2. 529 Prepaid Tuition Plan

Want to save money for your child’s college education without the risk of investing? Then a 529 prepaid tuition plan might be for you.

With this plan, you can lock in future tuition costs at today’s rate to save money. But, do your homework: Not every state offers these plans, and if your child chooses to attend an out-of-state school, you’ll pay the cost difference out of pocket.

3. Roth IRA

Yep, you can open a Roth IRA in your child’s name. However, they must have an earned income (part-time jobs count), so this option would most likely apply to teenagers.

With this account, they’ll get tax-free money when they retire. And unlike other retirement accounts, these funds can be used for qualified college expenses. While your child will have to pay taxes on the earnings, they won’t face an early withdrawal penalty.

4. UGMA/UTMA Account

If you want to invest in your kid’s future without choosing an account that’s for education expenses only, look into a UGMA (Uniform Gifts to Minors Act) or UTMA (Uniform Transfers to Minors Act). Parents can set up a custodial account and then make withdrawals to cover child-related expenses. Once the child is of legal age, the assets are transferred to their name.

5. Brokerage Account

Looking for more options that aren’t exclusive to education? You can invest in a taxable brokerage account. Choose from a variety of investments and make withdrawals at any time. But take note: The value has to be included in financial aid calculations.

6. Savings Account

Don’t forget the old standby: a traditional savings account. While interest rates are low and whatever interest you earn is taxed as income, an FDIC-insured bank savings account is — in the words of Adams — “one of the safest places you can squirrel away money for a child’s future.”

Listen to the Money Girl podcast episode for Adams’ full breakdown of these six ways to save money for your child, including the pros and cons of each method.

Kathleen Garvin is an editor for The Penny Hoarder. She just finished paying off her student loans and is worried about her own savings account at the moment, OK? You can follow her on Twitter @itskgarvin.

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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Warby Parker Is Hiring a Part-Time Rep to Help Customers Via Email

How should I frame this?

Designer eyewear retailer Warby Parker is looking for a part-time, work-from-home customer experience advisor, and perks include new spectacles.

You’ll need to be available to work at least 20 hours per week, including weekends and holidays. The role requires you to respond to customers via email, with the opportunity to get promoted to live chats.

The company has a three-week, on-site training program in Nashville, Tennessee, and you must live in the area to apply.

Not the job for you? Then feast your eyes on our Jobs page on Facebook. We post new opportunities there all the time.

Work-From-Home Customer Experience Advisor at Warby Parker

Responsibilities include:

• Assisting customers via email with styling advice and order completion
• Using the internal management system to process sales orders
• Directing customer inquiries to appropriate departments

Applicants for this position must have:

• Creative problem-solving abilities
• Expert-level online communication skills
• Detail-oriented organization prowess

Benefits include:

• Retirement plan with a company match
• Annual eye exam and free eyewear (plus discounts for friends and family)

Apply here for the work-from-home customer experience advisor job at Warby Parker.

Tiffany Wendeln Connors 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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How to Track Your Leads with UTM Parameters

No marketing strategy is complete without an effective lead generation strategy.

Those of you who are making a conscious effort to generate new leads are on the right track so far. But where are your leads coming from?

When you’re running multiple campaigns, how are you able to identify the source of your new leads? If you can’t answer these questions, read this guide.

UTM parameters will tell you exactly where the traffic from your digital marketing campaigns is coming from.

I’ve advised some marketers who haven’t implemented this strategy because they think it’s unnecessary. They see their site traffic increase, so they automatically assume this is the result of their lead generation campaigns.

While this may be true, you can’t make assumptions. The only way to know for sure is by putting your theory to the test.

According to the HubSpot’s 2018 State of Inbound Marketing report, getting leads and traffic are the top challenges faced by marketers.

It’s obvious the majority of businesses can benefit from a strategy that helps improve their lead generation efforts.

Once you’re able to pinpoint your most effective marketing campaign, you can focus the majority of your efforts on that strategy.

On the flip side, you may also realize some of your lead generation strategies aren’t working at all. So you can stop wasting money on those by eliminating them completely, or you can decide to rework them with an improved approach.

Ultimately, UTM parameters will make your marketing strategy more efficient.

In this guide, I’ll show you exactly how you can track leads with UTM parameters. I’ll also give you some examples of ways you can implement these tactics.

Setting up your UTM parameters

Before we go any further, it’s time to show you how to set up a UTM parameter for your marketing campaigns.

To those of you who are unfamiliar with this, it may sound a little bit intimidating. But don’t worry, you’ll soon realize this is actually fairly easy.

Just navigate to the “Campaign URL Builder” option from your Google Analytics menu.

From here, you’ll see simple instructions for creating a custom link to track your leads.

If you’ve only got a handful of marketing campaigns and you’re distributing them on a couple of channels, your custom URLs won’t be too complex.

But eventually, you should diversify your marketing efforts across as many channels as possible. That’s why it’s important for your UTM parameters to be very specific. It can help you stay organized in the long run.

Google Analytics has five potential parameters that you can add to each customized URL:

• campaign source
• campaign medium
• campaign name
• campaign term
• campaign content

The source is used to identify exactly where the link is going to be embedded. This could be something like an advertiser, another website, or publication.

Email newsletters, banners, or CPC campaigns would all fall under the campaign medium category.

The campaign name is where you can be specific with your promotion. You could enter terms related to a slogan, promotional code, or something like “summer sale” to specify.

Campaign terms are for those of you who are paying for keywords. To keep track of any paid keyword promotions, you’ll want to include those words in this field.

Your campaign content parameter will help you separate similar links within the same promotion. For example, let’s say you have multiple CTA buttons within the same newsletter. You’d use this parameter to differentiate among them.

Here’s a look at an example I made to show you how this would look:

I’m obviously using Quick Sprout as the example here, as you can see in the website URL field.

Based on my parameters, this link is going to be from an email newsletter about one of my lead generation campaigns. This link is specifically for the first CTA button in case I’m planning to have more than one in the same newsletter.

Once you fill out the fields, the Google Analytics tool will automatically generate a custom link for you. Here’s what the link looks like from the above example:

As you can see, all of those terms are included in the link.

Once your link is live, all you need to do is copy and paste it for use in that specific campaign. Google Analytics will track all the data from each link.

Now, you’ll be able to see exactly how successful all of your various lead gen ads are.

Best practices for naming UTM parameters

Now that you know how to set up your parameters, I want to give you a little bit more insight on naming them.

Sure, no matter what you put in the term fields, Google Analytics will still generate a working link to track your leads. But there are definitely ways to make things easier for yourself to avoid confusion.

For starters, your UTM parameters should be as simple as possible.

Simplicity is a common theme in marketing. Websites with simple designs have higher conversion rates.

While the complexity of your UTM parameters may not impact conversions, it will certainly have an effect on your organization. It’s easier to keep track of everything if you have fewer terms.

It’s also essential that you stay consistent with your capitalization. The easiest way to do this is by using all lowercase letters. That’s because this tool is case sensitive.

For example, if you have one link with “utm_source=newsletter” and another that’s written as “utm_source=Newsletter”, Google Analytics will track them as different sources.

I know some of you may be thinking you would remember which words to capitalize and which ones not to. So what’s the issue?

We’re humans. Any time you do something manually, you risk human error. That’s why it’s in your best interest to stick with all lowercase letters like I did in the example we saw earlier.

Use hyphens.

Take a look at this graphic about URL readability. Which of the following three links is the most appealing?

Obviously, the first one is the most readable of the three. It’s simple, and it uses hyphens.

But readability aside, using hyphens also helps you with SEO purposes. Matt Cutts told us that the Google algorithm won’t penalize you for using hyphens. But underscores can decrease the chances of getting higher organic search traffic.

So if you look at the example URL I built earlier, you would see I used a hyphen between the words lead and generation.

Since there can’t be a space in a website URL, the Google Analytics default character to replace spaces is the % symbol, which looks even worse than an underscore.

It’s also important that you don’t repeat yourself when you’re naming your parameters. Here’s what I mean by that.

If your campaign source is Facebook, you wouldn’t want your campaign name to be something like “facebook-promo” because it’s repetitive.

You already know the promo is on Facebook because that’s what your source is labeled. The redundancy isn’t simple and can end up confusing you in the long run.

Banner advertisements

For those of you who are paying other websites to promote your brand through banners, creating UTM parameters is an absolute necessity here.

Let’s say your brand is being advertised on three separate websites as a banner ad.

Don’t you want to know which one is yielding the highest results?

Yes, increasing traffic and getting new leads is great. But why pay for three websites to promote your brand if 90% of the traffic is coming from one website?

Using your data from the UTM parameters, you can eliminate ineffective websites from your banner campaigns. This will help you save money and increase efficiency with these types of promotions.

Use custom links for your social media strategy

Your social media marketing campaigns are essential to your lead generation strategy.

Using these profiles to drive traffic to your site will definitely help you grow your business. But how do you know which social media profiles are generating the most leads?

You can find out with UTM parameters.

We’ll keep it simple. Let’s say you wrote a new blog post and you’re going to use your social media channels to distribute this updated content. Great idea.

You can see that your blog post is getting lots of new traffic, but you can’t identify the source. By implementing this tactic, you’ll be able to tell the sources of traffic right away.

Here’s an example of a recent blog post I wrote on the Neil Patel website. I used Twitter to share it with my followers:

But that’s not the only place where I’m promoting this new content.

If you look at my Facebook profile, you’ll see a similar post there as well:

I’m sure your brand has a similar approach when it comes to marketing new content on your social media profiles. So this is definitely something that you can relate to.

By assigning different source parameters for Twitter and Facebook campaigns, you’ll be able to see where your new leads are coming from.

Based on this information, you can adjust your strategy accordingly. Let’s say you learned that 80% of your leads came from Facebook. There are a couple of ways in which you could act on this information.

First, you may decide to double down on your Facebook marketing tactics. You could increase spending to generate leads with Facebook ads.

Or you may try leaving your Facebook campaigns alone for now and focusing more on rebuilding your presence on Twitter instead. Maybe you’ll implement a combination of these strategies.

But either way, you learned this valuable information because you implemented UTM parameters.

Do NOT use UTM parameters to test links on your website

While it may seem tempting and applicable, UTM parameters should not be used for internal linking within your website.

I’ll give you an example of what I’m referring to. Let’s take a look at the Crazy Egg website. Here’s one of the CTAs on the homepage:

Simple, right?

But if you continue scrolling on this homepage, you’ll find that this isn’t the only location where “show me my heatmap” is written.

Here’s a screenshot from further down on the same page.

It has the same exact phrasing as the CTA above.

So if you get new leads from your homepage, UTM parameters will be able to tell you which link they came from, right? Wrong.

Using UTM parameters internally will just create another visit in Google Analytics data. In short, this will inflate your site visits numbers and cause several other metrics to be inaccurate.

You’re better off using event tracking or setting up A/B tests for this purpose. Use your UTM parameters for all external sources outside of your website that generate leads.

Conclusion

Running campaigns to generate new leads is important. But this strategy isn’t effective if you can’t track the source of your leads.

That’s why you need to start using UTM parameters.

It’s easy to create custom links with this Google Analytics tool. Just make sure you follow the best practices for naming them.

Keep it simple. Use hyphens. Stick with lowercase letters. Don’t be repetitive.

Use UTM parameters to help keep track of your banner advertisements. Implementing these links with your social media strategy is effective as well.

While there are plenty of ways you can use UTM parameters to your advantage when it comes to tracking your leads, you should not use them to monitor internal links on your site.

If you follow these tips, you’ll be able to adjust your marketing strategy accordingly based on the results of your analytics.

How is your business using UTM parameters to track new leads?

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Jumbo Student Loans Increasing: What Indebted Students Should Do

Jumbo shrimp may be quite enjoyable. Jumbo debt? Not so much. Learn how the profile and outlook of jumbo student loan borrowers have changed recently.

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How to Overcome Projection Bias with Your Finances

One of my favorite exercises for planning ahead for the future is for people to make a detailed picture of what their future will look like. It’s a practice I do all the time.

In that practice, I just sit down and think about the future I’d like to have five years from now (or ten or twenty or whatever my timeframe is) in as much detail as possible. I make the assumption that things will go well, but not unbelievably well. It usually incorporates some significant degree of success on the goals I’m working on.

That type of visioning has a few powerful purposes. The biggest one is to somewhat clarify what goals are most important to me, because success with those goals tend to be the first elements I think about in that vision. A secondary benefit is motivation, because I’m visualizing a great outcome to a goal.

Still, there’s a pretty big problem underlining this practice, and that problem has a name: projection bias.

Projection bias is pretty simple to understand. When people think ahead to their future, they often make a ton of assumptions that center around their life being pretty much exactly the same as it is right now. This heavily extends to their current emotional state – if you’re upset, your projection of the future will have a negative tinge to it. If you’re happy, your projection of the future will have a positive tinge to it.

Wikipedia offers a solid explanation:

Projection bias is the tendency to falsely project current preferences onto a future event. When people are trying to estimate their emotional state in the future they attempt to give an unbiased estimate. However, people’s assessments are contaminated by their current emotional state and thus it may be difficult for them to predict their emotional state in the future an occurrence known as mental contamination.

In other words, we tend to visualize our future self as being much like the person we are now, with similar preferences and interests, but that visualization is often strongly tinted by our current emotional state.

So, if making a detailed picture of your future is shaded both by your current preferences and by your current emotional state, what value does that picture have? I argue that a detailed picture still has a lot of value, but there are a few caveats that should be attached to it.

First of all, you should make projections for the future on a regular basis, not just once. If you make a picture of what your future looks like just once and then try to stick with it over time, you’re going to find yourself working toward a future that probably isn’t really what you want, and it’s a picture of the future that you’ll gradually drift away from over time.

Instead, you should visualize the future in detail regularly. This corrects both for your emotional state as well for your other changing preferences in life.

For example, let’s say I’m visualizing the future when I’m in a mood where I feel like my relationship with one of my children is a bit strained, as I had to take away a privilege from them due to some behavioral problem and they got really upset. That feeling will probably have an impact on my vision for the future, even if I’m aware of it.

It’s a bad idea for me to bank all of my plans on that vision of the future. It’s not going to be very accurate in terms of my likely relationship with my child at that point.

Instead, what I should do is re-visualize the future on a regular basis. I do it about once a month, where I write down all of the details I can think of about where I want my future to be headed. The actual goals I’m working toward are something of an average of those visualizations over the last year or so. If there are consistent threads that show up over and over again, I know those are important to me. However, if something pops up only once or twice, I know those things are probably just tied to my emotional state and my focus at the moment.

In terms of specific, concrete plans, stick to what you know will happen. You know that you’re going to get old and you know that there will come a point when you physically and mentally don’t want to work at your current job, so plan for that. You know that your children are going to grow older and you know that, no matter what career path they might choose, they’ll probably need at least a little financial help with the education needed (whether it’s a trade school or a community college or a university). You know that you’re going to eventually have to replace your car. Those things are about as guaranteed as possible, thus it’s okay to make concrete financial plans for them.

You should be saving for retirement. You should be saving for the future education of your child (assuming, of course, you believe you should play a role in helping to pay for it). You should be saving for your next vehicle, provided you have any sort of need to drive anywhere. You should have an emergency fund. Those things cover issues that you know are going to happen.

The same thing is true for other aspects of long-term planning. You know you’re going to get older and thus more susceptible to declining health, so it’s a very good idea to be proactive about your health starting right now so that you’re not stuck in a bad situation later on.

What about the other plans you might have for the future? If you’re not dead certain something will occur, plan for it in a flexible way.

For example, let’s say that you intend to move to a new house in five to 10 years, ideally one that you build in the country. There are several ways you can start preparing for this.

One way is to simply start saving for that goal. Start putting aside some money each month for a down payment on the land and the expense of building the house. That’s a good approach.

Another approach is to start shopping for land right now and, if you find a decent piece of land, take out a mortgage on it right away and start making mortgage payments. That’s a bad approach.

Why is the first one good and the second one bad? With the first approach, if your goal changes, you still have a big pool of cash in savings with which to use for your new plans. With the second approach, your money is tied up in a chunk of land with a mortgage on it and most of your mortgage payments have gone to just pay off the interest and you’ve been footing the property tax bill, too. Because you locked into a specific plan early, you’ve been pushing your money into a mortgage for years and property taxes for years and your only hope is that the value of the land has gone up a lot.

The thing to remember here is there are a lot of ways that this goal could go off the rails. You might have been intending it as a retirement home, only to get divorced or to have one of you pass away unexpectedly. You could simply decide together that you don’t want a house in the country any more. Maybe a job offer takes you away from realistically being able to live in the country.

The moral of the story? Stay as flexible as possible with your savings as you work toward a big goal that isn’t a guarantee. If you’ve got a big goal that’s five or 10 or 20 years down the road and it’s not something that’s guaranteed to happen, you should be saving for that goal in the most flexible way possible, so that those financial resources can be used for other things. This is why people often save for big goals in a normal taxable investment account that can be used for anything when the time comes. Other accounts, like a Roth IRA or a 529, are designed for tax advantages when used for specific purposes (retirement and college education, namely) but usually have a tax penalty if used for other purposes.

So, let’s summarize what’s going on with projection bias.

It’s a good idea to visualize your future because it helps you see things that are coming down the road and to set long term goals for yourself. However, those visualizations are often at least somewhat flawed thanks to projection bias. You can work around those flaws by only making specific plans and taking specific actions for things that you know are coming, like your own aging, and being much more general in your savings plans for all other goals that could change over time as your life situation and perspectives change.

No matter what, it’s a good idea to save for the future, because you’ll always have big things you want to achieve. It’s just a good idea to not lock down those future plans unless those big goals are inevitable.

Good luck.

The post How to Overcome Projection Bias with Your Finances appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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I Feel Like I’m Screwing Up by Holding Out for Student Loan Forgiveness

Lucky,

Congratulations on your degree! What an accomplishment.

But oh, student loan guilt. It’ll take the shine off your new diploma in an instant.

Even when you have a repayment plan to follow, and even when you know you’ll be saddled with this debt for much of the rest of your mortal life, there’s still the guilt factor. The feeling that you should be doing more.

Have you ever grabbed a calculator to fiddle with the numbers and see if you have any hope of paying off your student loan debt quicker? I’ve done that. It usually ends in the fetal position on the couch. A high balance makes it difficult to make headway unless you come into some cash, like lottery or long-lost aunt cash. Otherwise, every month when the bill is due, you get a reminder of just how long you have to go.

But you’re doing it right, even if your income-based repayment (IBR) amount seems trivial. Interest rates for federal student loans are lower than for other consumer debt, such as credit cards. Long-term student loans are gross, but they’re just a third wheel in your relationship with your money. Everyone’s got a third wheel.

To knock out some of that guilt, stop thinking about your student loan balance as debt, and start thinking of it as just another bill. Instead of focusing on the total balance, take it month by month and focus on what’s due now. Then, free up some mental space to think about your other financial goals, like paying off your credit card debt or saving for retirement.

Don’t feel bad about the loophole — seriously. From you to me to the rest of the United States, we collectively have more than a trillion dollars of student loan debt. Take the way out.

Now, for a few words of caution about that way out.

I asked two experts about your situation: attorney Adam Minsky, whose Boston-based law firm specializes in student loans, and student loan consultant Heather Jarvis.

If you don’t already have proof of your forgiveness date in writing, make sure you get it and triple-check it. Minsky explained that since IBR wasn’t created until 2008, the earliest someone could get their loans forgiven with the 25-year payment plan would be 2033 — 15 years from now. If you had income-contingent repayment before IBR came into play, your situation may be different. It would behoove you to have a conversation with the federal Student Loan Support Center to verify your status and ask for proof. Always get proof, especially when you think there’s a loophole in play.

As for your income, remember that income-based repayment. “Your currently low payments are likely based on last year's lower income, and so [they] won't last,” Jarvis warned.

You’re smart to also be thinking about the tax obligation for the forgiven loan balance.

Jarvis explained that Public Service Loan Forgiveness, for those who work in government or nonprofits, is not taxable as income. But income-driven repayment plans of 20 or 25 years, depending on the plan, require forgiveness be taxed as income.

Minsky suggests working with a tax adviser or accountant if you haven’t done so already. “They would have a better handle on potential tax consequences of loan forgiveness,” he said in an email. “Any tax resulting from cancellation of debt typically must be paid either all at once, or over a relatively short installment period with interest and penalties added, and the IRS has powerful collections tools if the borrower cannot pay.”

Changes to federal law could impact your situation, too, Minsky warned. “We don’t know what the tax legal landscape will look like 10 to 15 years from now,” he said.

The inbox is open. Send your worries to dearpenny@thepennyhoarder.com, and I’ll see what I can do to help.

Disclaimer: Chosen questions and featured answers will appear in The Penny Hoarder's “Dear Penny” column. I won't be able to answer every single letter (I can only type so fast!). We reserve the right to edit and publish your questions. Don’t worry — your identity will remain anonymous. I don’t have a psychology, accounting, finance or legal degree, so my advice is for general informational purposes only. I do, however, promise to give you honest advice based on my own insights and real-life experiences.

Lisa Rowan is a senior 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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Married to Someone Who’s Bad With Money? 11 Tips From Financial Experts

For richer, for poorer… ’til death do us part.

Marriage is the merging of lives. Also (often) the merging of salaries, bank accounts and financial futures.

But what do you do if you’re married to someone who’s terrible with money?

You love them. But you hate the way they spend money, rack up debt and can’t avoid overdraft fees at the bank.

It’s important to do the smart thing here, because fighting over money tears marriages apart. Money fights are the No. 1 predictor of divorce, according to this study of national data.

What to do instead? For tips, we talked to experienced financial advisers who counsel couples about their money problems.

1. Understand Why

If your spouse is terrible with money, veteran financial adviser Maggie Johndrow offers a fundamental piece of advice: “Understand why your partner is bad with money.”

This might be a good place to work with a financial advisor or a marriage therapist, says Johndrow, a financial adviser with Farmington River Financial in Hartford, Connecticut.

“Is your partner a big spender because they grew up poor and now they have the means to buy what they want?” she asked. “Or are they very risk-averse because of a financial tragedy that occurred in their past?”

Understanding each other’s money story will increase the likelihood you’ll work together financially.

2. Separate Bank Accounts Can Help Protect Your Money

“When it comes to couples, there’s typically only one person who wants to handle the finances, and sometimes the other person may quietly have their own money struggles the other person doesn't know about — large credit card balances or excessive monthly spending,” says Brett Anderson, president of St. Croix Advisors in Hudson, Wisconsin.

“I’d have separate savings, checking, investment accounts,” he said. “This should also include credit cards, loans, etc.”

If you need a quick, easy way to set up a secure checking account online, check out Chime. Bonus with this online account: You might get your paycheck up to two days early, which can help with money management. Unlike most banks, Chime doesn’t wait until your pay date to give you access to your money.

“I find it pretty common for married couples to have one spouse that runs point on the family’s finances and one spouse that usually isn’t as good with money,” says Andy Yadro, a financial planner with Googins Advisors in Madison, Wisconsin.

He recommends each spouse keep their own checking account, then open one jointly owned account. Most of your earnings funnel into the joint account, which you use for living expenses and savings goals. Each of you has a small percentage of your own pay that you can spend guilt-free on whatever you please.

3. Automate Your Savings

“Another best practice is to automate your savings program,” Yadro says. “Have a set amount each pay period automatically transfer into a savings or investment account that doesn’t have a debit card attached to it. That helps keep the money out of sight and prevents easy access so it can continue to grow untouched.”

Automating your savings doesn’t have to be hard. Digit is an automated savings platform that calculates how much money you can afford to save.

Simply link Digit to your checking account, and its algorithms will determine small (and safe!) amounts of money to withdraw into a separate, FDIC-insured savings account. Plus, Penny Hoarders will get a $5 bonus just for signing up.

4. Plan for Your Future Together

It’s no brilliant secret that investing can be a smart way to make money.

Sometimes, though, it feels restricted to a few wealthy elite.

But Stash is different. This app lets you start investing with as little as $5 and for just a $1 monthly fee for balances under $5,000.

Stash curates investments from professional fund managers and investors and lets you choose where to put your money. But it leaves the complicated investment terms out of it. You just choose from a set of simple portfolios reflecting your beliefs, interests and goals.

5. Agree on Who Holds the Purse Strings

If your spouse is bad with money, you’re going to have to decide how much control you want to try to assert over the family finances. Only you can answer that question.

“It is not unusual with couples that one person is better at dealing with money than the other. After all, opposites tend to attract,” said financial adviser Karen Lee, president of Karen Lee & Associates in Atlanta, Georgia.

“The most important part of this situation is to recognize it and to mutually decide to let the person who is better with money handle it. But if the person who isn’t good with money is also a ‘spender,’ this can be a challenge.”

If you end up handling more of the financial load and managing your family’s money, consider helping yourself out with a free financial assistant.

Charlie is a money-saving penguin, a digital financial assistant who lives in your SMS text messages or Facebook Messenger (your choice, though Charlie is more fun and reliable on Messenger).

The bot offers help with a little bit of everything, such as tracking your spending, reminding you when you have a bill due and reminding you when it’s time to save.

6. Turn Their Shopping Habits Into a Moneymaker

Is your spouse a shopaholic?

You might as well harness that and get some cash back on their many purchases.

Here are a couple of our favorite tools:

Does your spouse shop online? Enter Paribus, a tool that gets you money back for your online purchases. It's free to sign up, and once you do, it will scan your email archives for any receipts. If it discovers you’ve purchased something from one of its monitored retailers, it will track the item’s price and help you get a refund anytime there’s a price drop.

Ebates is a cash-back shopping site where you can earn 1% to 25% on purchases you make from more than 2,500 online retailers through Ebates’ online shopping portal. It’s super easy — you don’t have to pay any fees, mail in forms or redeem points to get your money.

Remember, this is money you otherwise wouldn’t get back.

7. Reward Yourselves for Good Financial Decisions

If you end up managing your family’s money, help yourself out with a useful app or two. The power of the digital age is at your command!

One app we’ve road-tested is MoneyLion, a free all-in-one app for managing your personal finances.

MoneyLion offers rewards to help you develop healthy financial habits and will literally pay you for logging onto the app. Based on your income and spending patterns, it offers personalized advice to help you save money, reduce your debt and improve your credit.

8. Cut Your Expenses Where You Can

You’re going to have to cut your family expenses wherever you realistically can.

To track your expenses, try checking out Trim, a free bot that keeps track of all your transactions. Connect your checking and savings accounts and credit cards for a big-picture look at your spending habits. Set alerts that’ll let you know when bills are due or when you’ve hit a spending cap.

9. Watch Your Credit

A little reality check here: Remember that once you’re married, your spouse’s debts can become your problem.

Your spouse’s shaky credit score can also hurt your chances of getting joint credit at good interest rates — like if you want to buy a house.

To get a better handle on what your credit looks like, check out a free app like CreditWise© from Capital One. You’ll get a free credit report card to show you exactly where your credit shines… and where it could use some improvement.

Advertiser Disclosure: Capital One compensates us when you enroll in CreditWise using the links we provided above.

10. No Matter What, Work Together

Money management guru Dave Ramsey has strong feelings on this subject.

“Marriage is a partnership,” he writes. “Separating the money and splitting the bills is a bad idea that will only lead to more marital problems down the road … Put all of your money together and begin to look at it as a whole.”

Whatever you decide is best for your bank accounts, heed the point of his message: You’re both on the same team, so work on the budget together.

11. Above All, Communication is Key

All the experts I spoke with said some version of the following:

More than anything, it’s important for you two to really communicate. Perhaps schedule a weekly sit-down just to talk about money. That way, each of you understands where your spouse is coming from.

“When I have couples who are paying off debt, struggling to keep a budget or otherwise experiencing financial friction with each other, I invite them to hold a weekly financial meeting,” says Justin Chidester, owner of Wealth Mode Financial Planning in Logan, Utah. “No judgment, no blame and open listening.”

Know this: Being secretive about finances is the No. 1 financial deal breaker for couples, according to a GoBankingRates survey. It outweighs overspending, having too much debt, being too cheap or not making enough money. Keeping secrets was the biggest sin.

For Richer, for Poorer

And remember:

Whenever you get frustrated, think of those marriage vows.

For richer, for poorer… ’til death do us part.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He is married, and he’s terrible with more things than 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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