You’re on the job hunt, and you’re clicking send again on yet another application. You wonder: Where is this going? A black hole? We’ve all been there. It can be frustrating and disheartening to send your resume into what feels like outer space, only to refresh your inbox and find the same, standard auto-response that […]
The post 5 Ways to Get Your Resume Noticed appeared first on The Work at Home Woman.
Back to school shopping doesn’t have to be just for parents or kids.
For the last few years, I’ve covered back to school shopping for TheStreet.com, and while I was neither in school nor sending a child off to one, I can almost recite by heart the list of items that get discounted around this time each year. Unfortunately for both me and my wife, some technical difficulties pressed each of us into doing some back to school shopping of our own this year.
I have had my little 13-inch white MacBook for almost a decade. It fills all my writing needs, it remains largely bug-free and, until this year, it required only a new battery every now and then. However, Apple has considered it obsolete for a while now and, this year, it began running incredibly hot and, in its final days, wasn’t responding to mouse commands.
Despite living in a tech-driven corner of Oregon, only one computer shop would take my hobbled laptop. As it turned out, the battery had swelled beyond the laptop’s casing and had bent the clickpad out of place. It came home fixed, but with a warning that even third-party companies weren’t producing batteries for it anymore.
My wife, meanwhile, had dumped her old Dell laptop into a magazine rack beside our couch and left it there do die. She’d purchased it 11 years ago for a graduate program and had it repaired multiple times by technicians at her father’s workplace. When it, too, lost battery integrity and became more buggy than she could deal with, she made do with a free tablet from our wireless provider until she could shop for another.
That’s when I remembered, after years of consulting sites like DealNews and LifeHacker, that late-summer back-to-school sales are second only to Black Friday for laptop deals. I checked Best Buy during its “Black Friday in July” sale and found a MacBook Air that sells for $999 on Apple’s site listed for $849. It wasn’t refurbished and, while it wasn’t the $699 version I could’ve received if I was a student, it was still a fine deal.
Laura, meanwhile, paid just $200 on Amazon for an updated version of the Dell Inspiron that cost her more than twice as much a decade earlier. As DealNews notes, however, last year saw Dell prices drop 11 percent between July and August, while Lenovo 11.6-inch laptops (far smaller than her 15.6-inch model) sold for about $130.
While Apple, Best Buy, and other tech retailers will restrict their best deals to card-carrying college kids or their parents, there are still deals out there for those who won’t be attending classes in the fall. According to DealNews, 31 percent of the tablet deals offered in August 2017 were among the best deals of that year.
Besides, not every sale needs a student ID card. Notebooks, pens, pencils, markers, disinfectant wipes, and more wind up on sale at Walmart and Target, often for less than a buck apiece. Staples used to not only revel in parents’ back-to-school shopping, but still slashes the prices of notebooks, pens, folders, rulers, index cards, Post-It Notes, and other items around this time each year. If you’re an adult who uses pens and paper in any capacity and you aren’t using this time of year as an excuse to go to Office Depot and stock up on stationery and other office supplies, you’re missing a pretty great opportunity for frugality.
The National Retail Federation estimates that parents will spend $82.8 billion this year amid increased consumer confidence. However, those shopping for college and beyond spend $55 billion of that total, and roughly $941 apiece. That includes more than $229 on electronics — but clothes, shoes, furniture, and home goods all go on sale as a result of college kids’ whims as well.
Summer apparel always sees a price drop around this time of year at places like the Gap, Kohl’s, JCPenney, and Old Navy, but shoes also get a back-to-school boost as Clarks, Famous Footwear, DSW, Puma, Adidas, and Tilly’s all offer deep discounts. According to DealNews, Puma and Adidas brands drop as low as $25 for adult sneakers around this time of year, while online outlets like Sperry, Shoebacca, and Foot Locker will offer discounts of 33 to 75 percent.
However, you can’t discount just how much of an effect back-to-school sales have on “filler items” like stacks of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, paper towels, and other items you see as you head toward the registers or that pop up as suggestions to get you to free shipping. This year, Target offers $15 off $50 worth of household supplies, while Walmart pushes bedding and small kitchen appliances with college kids in mind. Bed Bath & Beyond, meanwhile, built itself on offering storage containers, shelving, hangers, laundry kits, and shower items at a deep discount around this time of year.
Those big piles of sale-priced storage containers at Home Depot or Lowe’s? Those giants skids of pencils and tape at Costco? None of them require a child or a teacher’s list to pick up for yourself.
You just have to think somewhat like a college student or school parent. How much of each of these items will it take to get me through the year? How many of these do I actually go through, and is it worth getting this many to get the bulk discount? Is any of this apparel multi-seasonal? How long will it be before I actually need to buy shoes again?
Shopping for laptops during back to school season this year was just a sound reminder of the frugality behind shopping these sales when you have kids in school. You want to get as many of the best items you can at the lowest cost possible, and you want to make sure what you buy will be durable enough to get you through at least the school year.
If you can stock up on a year’s worth of clothing, office supplies, cleaning supplies, and other home goods for dorm-room prices, all while picking up a laptop that will survive a collegiate career, you’re learning one of the best lessons the start of the school year can teach.
More by Jason Notte:
The post Kids or Not, It Can Pay to Do Some Back to School Shopping for Yourself appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Swagbucks is adding new ways to earn rewards all the time. In just 20 minutes a day, I earn $100 or more per month in Swagbucks rewards. To boost your bonus earnings, check out these top ways we’ve found to increase your rewards in less time.
New to Swagbucks? Check out our complete beginner’s guide.
Swagbucks’ new trivia game, Swag IQ, lets you earn rewards for your trivia prowess.
A live trivia game every weekday allows you to win Swagbucks (SBs) for correct answers. Get all ten questions right (or buy back in with SBs when you get one wrong) and receive your share of the daily cash price. The bonus pot is typically worth over $1,100, but the prize is split between all winners.
Even if you get a question wrong, be sure to stick around! You earn SBs for each correct answer. But you do have to be signed in for the entire game for those rewards to hit your account.
Swago is Swagbucks’ digital bingo game to earn bonus rewards. These contests are weeklong challenges to complete different simple tasks within the Swagbucks platform to create specific designs on your Swago board. The more difficult the design, the more SBs you can earn.
Claim tiles by earning SBs through using the Swagbucks search engine, attempting surveys, clicking through to partner sites and activating your SwagButton browser extension. The columns with the easiest tiles on the board typically take just a minute or two, and can earn you 10 SBs. But fill up the whole board and you’ll snag 500 SBs.
Beware, however, that completing the whole board always includes buying a gift card from Swagbucks partner site, MyGiftCardsPlus. Only buy gift cards you need. Don’t create unnecessary spending to earn rewards.
You don’t need to be online to earn Swagbucks rewards. Swagbucks is partnered with thousands of local businesses to offer SB rewards on your purchases.
Connect a credit or debit card to Swagbucks so they can see your transactions. (Don’t worry: They don’t have access to make changes to your account, and they are fully secure.) Then shop at your usual local restaurants and businesses. Rewards will be automatically applied to your account.
This is one of my favorite ways to earn SBs, since I get rewards for things I’m already doing. My family’s favorite local barbecue and Chinese food restaurants are partnered with Swag Local. After linking our card, I get rewards every time we order takeout.
If you’re looking to cool off this summer, Baskin-Robbins is offering 15 SBs per dollar spent – the equivalent of 15% rewards. Keep an eye out on your account balance; it can take two to three weeks for your account to be credited.
Ever sign into Swagbucks and wonder what to do first? There are so many ways to earn SBs now, with more being added all the time. To help you focus your efforts, Swagbucks has rolled out a daily to-do list.
With eight items on the list, you earn a bonus for completing your daily activities in addition to your rewards from each task.
I like to do the Daily Watch on my phone. That way, I can run the movie trailers while I tackle the other items on the list. The Daily Poll, Daily Search and Deal of the Day just require a quick click, but completing a survey can take a few minutes.
Finishing your daily to-do list has a double benefit.
Checking off all eight items, including completing a gold survey, usually earns you enough SBs to surpass your daily earnings goal. That gets you another few bonus SBs. And who doesn’t like free money?
Chelsea Brennan is a personal finance writer focused on helping families make their money work for them. She is the founder of the blog Mama Fish Saves, and her work has been featured on Forbes, Business Insider, GoBankingRates and more.
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.
