It was a happy day on Wall Street as the bull market in stocks is now being considered by some as the longest bull market ever.
Source CBNNews.com https://ift.tt/2PwjISP
الأربعاء، 22 أغسطس 2018
Practically No One Orders Their Groceries Online, New Gallup Poll Says
Well, actually… not that many people are doing it.
A new poll from Gallup shows that 84% of people never shop online for groceries. In a survey of 1,033 adults in the U.S., only 4% of respondents said they shopped online weekly for groceries.
Another 11% said they ordered groceries online twice per month or less.
What are people doing instead? Eighty-one percent of the respondents said they’re still going to the grocery store the old-fashioned way: in person.
Parents and those with incomes above $75,000 per year were more likely to order groceries online. People in those categories were also more likely to order takeout or eat at restaurants. “More generally, Americans may just not like to think that far in advance when it comes to what to eat,” the report explains.
The results were similar to last year’s survey data, which may disappoint grocers that have been revving up their pickup and delivery options to stay competitive.
But this year’s poll did introduce a new question about grocery shopping habits: Do people order meal kits to prepare at home?
And the news is not great for meal kit companies: Eighty-nine percent of people said they never use them. “There are no significant differences in the low percentages of people who use meal preparation kits by gender, age, employment, income or family status,” the report explains.
The overall lack of dependence on online grocery shopping doesn’t mean shoppers are Luddites who enjoy perusing checkout lane tabloids. Rather, pickup and delivery offerings are still being refined to provide a blend of convenience and value for shoppers.
Until grocers find the magic equation that gets people to buy online, we’ll just have to mutter obscenities at the fickle self-checkout scanners at our favorite stores.
Lisa Rowan is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder, where she covers the retail and grocery industries.
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/2BBzx7R
The Beauty of Barbizon’s $100K Scholarship Sweepstakes? No Essay Required
Not the Barbizon college tuition scholarship program. All you have to do is fill out a brief form to be eligible to win a $100,000 college tuition scholarship sweepstakes.
Barbizon, a modeling and acting business founded in 1939, awards a $100,000 scholarship to one winner every couple of years or so. The money is paid directly to the school the recipient attends.
Winners must be accepted at an accredited college or university. Vocational and technical colleges and trade schools aren’t included.
How to Apply for the Barbizon College Tuition Scholarship Program
To enter the Barbizon college tuition scholarship program, you must be a legal resident of the U.S., with the exclusion of Puerto Rico. Barbizon employees and affiliates and their families are ineligible.
Entries are being accepted through Dec. 31, 2018. You can complete an entry form at any Barbizon center, special event or online. All you need is your name, zip code, email, phone number and age.
However, you should be aware that you will be contacted by phone or email by a Barbizon marketer pitching one of its modeling or acting programs even if you don’t win. No purchase is necessary to win the contest, but you should make sure to read the official rules before entering.
The winner must start college within three years of graduating high school or by the date Barbizon notifies the person of the win, whichever is later. Barbizon will make tuition payments, up to $100,000, for four years only, regardless of whether the winner graduates by then.
Room, board, books and other expenses are not covered. If you win, you must agree to have your name and photo appear without compensation in advertising and promotional purposes unless you live in a state where it’s prohibited.
A winner will be chosen by Dec. 31, 2019. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.
Be sure to check out our list of other college scholarships you can apply for and like our college page on Facebook, where we post other scholarship opportunities.
Susan Jacobson is an editor 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/2LjzPA3
Land a College Internship at Disney and Make Your Inner Child Happy
The Walt Disney Co. is accepting applications for college students to work at its legendary theme parks in Florida and California as part of its Disney College Program.
The internships are between four and seven months long and give students exposure to the hospitality industry. Interns can work in a number of roles, such as park greeter, character attendant, PhotoPass photographer, resort housekeeper or food and beverage cashier. There’s a separate program for students interested in culinary careers.
The Disney College Program pays interns $10 to $13.25 an hour, depending on their role. Interns must be available to work full-time schedules, which may include evenings, weekends and holidays.
Participants in the internship program can earn school credit by taking college-level courses in subjects like hospitality management and organizational leadership.
Interns can choose to live in one of the apartment complexes near the resorts, but they don’t come free. Those who opt in to live at the designated housing near Walt Disney World in Florida can expect to pay between $103 and $200 per week in rent, plus a program fee of $240 that goes toward special activities and events for the interns.
Those staying in intern housing near Disneyland in California will be charged $149.50 per week, plus a $150 program fee and a refundable $150 security deposit.
To be eligible for the Disney College Program, students must:
- Be a current college student who has completed at least one semester or have graduated within the past six months.
- Be at least 18 years old at the start of the internship.
- Meet any school requirements for program participation (such as having a certain GPA or number of credit hours earned.
- Have unrestricted authority to work in the U.S.
The internships start at varying dates, but most begin in January 2019. No application deadline is listed. Fill out an application, and if you get this internship, you won’t have to plan a theme-park vacation for spring break.
Nicole Dow 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.
source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/2nYqSTk
Aretha Franklin Taught Us R-E-S-P-E-C-T… and That You Really Need a Will
According to TMZ, the Queen of Soul died intestate, meaning she did not have a will. Business Insider estimates Franklin had about $80 million in cash and assets when she died.
Knowing that, there are two lessons you can learn from Franklin’s life and death:
- Always demand your R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and
- Make sure your finances are in order before you die, no matter how morbid that seems.
Yes, You Still Need a Will Even if You’re Not the Queen of Soul
Thinking about drafting a will might seem unnecessarily dark. Especially if you’re young. Especially if you’re healthy. And especially if you’re broke.
Of course, the process of creating a will can be littered with legal jargon and a bit intimidating, which no doubt contributes to people putting it off.
But a will is not just for the super rich. In its simplest form, a will is there to make sure whatever money and assets you do have go to the people you choose. That can mean one less thing for your grieving loved ones to worry about when you’re gone.
By drafting a will, you can take a role in making sure your family is taken care of, rather than leaving it up to the state.
Depending on how much help you need, creating an estate plan with an attorney can cost up to $2,500. That should include a will, a trust to determine who will manage assets after your death, and documents granting legal and medical power of attorney so someone can make decisions on your behalf when you can’t.
You can use online services like Rocket Lawyer and LegalZoom to help you fill out the documents yourself. That usually costs you less than $50 per document.
Desiree Stennett (@desi_stennett) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. She writes about how government and court actions impact your wallet.
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/2PpES5j
The Top 10 Principles That Boost Your Website Loading Time
How fast does it take for your website to load?
You may not think about this question very often, but it’s arguably the most important aspect of your site.
That’s because 47% of people expect pages to load in just two seconds or less. Failure to meet this benchmark will crush your conversions.
In fact, 40% of website visitors will abandon pages if they take more than three seconds to load.
If you see high bounce and low conversion rates on your website, page load speed could be the issue. It’s also worth noting that websites with simple designs have higher conversion rates.
Simply put, the longer it takes for your website to load, the higher your page abandonment rates will be:
Here’s something else you need to consider. People are impatient—80% of people who abandon your website due to slow loading times will not return.
That’s right.
Consumers are used to getting instant results.
If you can’t deliver what they’re looking for, they’ll visit a competitor’s site that loads faster and never look back. Just a one-second delay could be costing you big bucks.
Improving your page loading time will optimize the customer experience and ultimately help you increase revenue.
In addition to optimizing the design principles of your website, you also need to understand the elements impacting the loading time and correct any mistakes you’re making.
But where do you start?
I’ve identified the top principles that increase the speed of your website and boost the loading time. Go through this list, and implement these methods on your site.
1. Reduce HTTP requests
If you are not familiar with technical terms, don’t worry—I’ll try to keep this as simple as possible. HTTP is short for hypertext transfer protocol.
These requests and responses transfer data from one point of a network to another.
When you type in a website address, you are telling your browser to establish a TCP connection that responds to the URL. Your computer, or whatever device you’re using, will send an HTTP request to the server to open the page.
According to a study by Yahoo, downloading different parts of a web page is 80% of the loading time.
Long loading times will increase your bounce rates:
If you have lots of elements on the page, such as scripts, images, and stylesheets, there will be an HTTP request for each one.
To reduce these requests, review your developer tools for the site. This will tell you how long each element takes to load and will show you the total number of requests on each page.
Eliminate any unnecessary files.
You can also combine some files together, but we’ll discuss that concept in greater detail shortly.
2. Improve the TTFB
TTFB stands for time to first byte.
Basically, this is the length of time a web browser needs to wait until the first byte of data is received from the server. According to Google, your TTFB should be less than 200ms for optimal performance.
Here are some potential reasons why your server may not be responding fast:
- slow routing
- memory starvation
- frameworks
- slow database queries
- slow application logic
- resource CPU starvation
Once you’re able to identify why the response time is so high, you can improve your TTFB.
Research shows that the median TTFB for running a website on Pantheon is three times faster than running it on alternatives:
You may want to consider this information if you want to improve your time to first byte.
This will help speed up the DNS lookup, server processing, and response times.
3. Reduce the response time of your server
Your page loading speed is directly related to your DNS lookup time.
DNS stands for domain name system. It’s a server with a database of IP addresses and names of hosts.
When someone types a website URL into a web browser, the DNS server converts that IP address to show the location of it on the Internet.
IP addresses are long strings of numbers. This eliminates the need for users to memorize these various number combinations.
But if this step takes too long, you may want to consider switching to a DNS provider with a faster service.
A slow DNS increases the amount of time web browsers take to locate your site. By speeding up this process, you will speed up your overall page loading time.
4. Enable caching
When someone visits a website, the elements on each page they visit are temporarily stored on a hard drive, which is called a cache.
When they visit the same website again, the browser can load the page, using the stored data, without sending another HTTP request back to the server.
This relates to my discussion about minimizing HTTP requests. It’s a great option, especially for those of you who are using visual elements to improve your website.
Enabling caching will speed up the loading time for your repeat website visitors.
It’s important because you want to accommodate users who browse your site frequently.
5. Minify and combine your files
As you’ve just seen, each file on your site increases the loading time.
That’s because they require additional HTTP requests. This holds true for all HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files.
But you can reduce the sizes of these files without having to eliminate them, which I talked about earlier.
I recommend trying the WordPress Rocket plugin or a similar program:
As you can see, this plugin makes it easy for you to minify and combine these files with just a few clicks.
But what does this do to your pages?
Basically, minification simplifies the files. It will remove unnecessary characters, such as white space, new lines, formatting, and comments. Minifying your files eliminates anything that isn’t needed for the code to function.
Combining files is as simple and straightforward as it sounds.
For example, let’s say a page on your site has six JavaScript files and eight CSS files. By combining similar files, you could have just two HTTP requests as opposed to 14.
But if you use HTTP/2, the combining process won’t have as much of an impact on your loading time because several requests can happen simultaneously.
6. Implement asynchronous loading
After your JavaScript and CSS files have been combined and minified, you can optimize the way they get loaded on your pages.
There are two options for loading CSS and JavaScript files:
- synchronously
- asynchronously
Loading scripts synchronously means they are loading one at a time. The order is determined by where they appear on the page.
Asynchronous loading will load some scripts at the same time. Implementing this loading strategy will speed up your website.
Synchronous loading can slow down your page loading speed: if just one file has an issue or takes a long time to load, nothing else will start until that is complete.
7. Select the best hosting option
When it comes to hosting a website, most people make the mistake of choosing the cheapest option.
Sure, this may be a viable option for now, but it’s not a long-term solution.
As your website traffic grows, you’ll need to upgrade your hosting. There are three ways for you to host your website:
- VPS hosting
- shared hosting
- dedicated server
For the most part, shared hosting will be the least expensive choice. That’s because you’ll be sharing things like RAM and disk space with other websites also hosted on that server.
If you decide to use VPS hosting, you’ll be sharing server space with other websites, but you’ll have certain portions for your own resources.
Here’s the difference between shared hosting and VPS hosting:
VPS hosting will be more expensive, but it’s beneficial if you have more website traffic. This will also make it easier for you to deliver more resource-intensive content.
A dedicated server will give you the most space.
That’s because there is a direct line from the server resources to your website. But this type of hosting requires more work on your end.
The setup is a bit more technical, and you’ll need a knowledgeable person to configure everything for you.
Although a dedicated server is the most expensive option, it will give you the most control over your site. Consider updating your server hosting if you have lots of traffic causing slow loading times.
8. Eliminate unnecessary redirects
There are a few different reasons for redirects on your website.
For example, if you’re tracking clicks or connecting different parts of a website together, it will require the browser to redirect from one URL to another.
But this increases latency and adds an extra HTTP request. Obviously, you want to avoid that.
Don’t set up more than one redirect for the same resource. If you must have a redirect, it should go straight from the start point to the target page.
Your URL references should always be updated whenever a resource changes its location. Don’t reference URLs that redirect to other URLs on your pages.
If you have extra domains that result in redirects but don’t serve a purpose, get rid of them altogether.
9. Install Google PageSpeed
Google PageSpeed has lots of benefits for your loading time.
It changes the resources on the web page to improve the bandwidth usage and latency.
After you install Google PageSpeed on your server, it will automatically use all the best practices for web performance. You won’t have to change the content.
The installation of this software alone can help you speed up your page loading time.
10. Compress your files and images
If you have small files, your pages will load faster.
The easiest way to improve your load time is by using Gzip to compress your files.
To see whether you have Gzip enabled, use the Check Gzip Compression tool:
This will give you a report showing the total size of compressed files compared to your uncompressed data.
In addition to compressing your files, you should also compress your images. To those of you using WordPress, I recommend something like the Smush Image Compression plugin.
Conclusion
It doesn’t matter what type of business you have or what industry you’re in, if you have a website, you need to prioritize the page loading time.
Slow pages will cause users to abandon your site. The majority of those users won’t return.
This is obviously a conversion killer.
To prevent this from happening, you need to understand the different factors impacting your website loading time.
Use this guide as a reference. Don’t feel overwhelmed.
If you need to make lots of changes, you don’t need to implement everything at once. But I’d say you should get started on this sooner rather than later.
Following the tips on this list will help your website load faster.
What elements of your website need to be changed to boost the page loading time?
Source Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/2PvgfEb
Seven Real Strategies for Back to School Shopping from a Parent of Three School Kids
Back to school season is here, with many schools starting classes in August and September after a nice summer break. I have two children going to middle school this year and another going to upper elementary, which means this is my ninth (tenth? sheesh, who can even count the years at this point?) year of dealing with back to school supply shopping.
Along the way, I have learned several lessons about effective back to school shopping for clothes and school supplies that have helped cut the cost way down. Here are seven really effective things we do each year to keep the costs low.
Hand things down
Lots of school items can be handed down from older siblings to younger ones or even to first cousins. Clothes can be handed down as children outgrow them (provided they haven’t been extensively worn down). Backpacks and lunchboxes can be reused for years and handed down if school requirements change. Non-consumable school supplies can definitely be handed down – things like rulers and binders and compasses and protractors can be used for many years.
Our strategy is that when a school year ends, we put away all of the school supplies until the end of the summer, and then our first pass for school supplies comes from the leftovers from the previous year. We’ll stow all of the unused boxes of pencils, the rulers, the compasses, the protractors, the lunchboxes, and so on in one or two of the backpacks from the previous year and we’ll just pull all of that stuff out and use it to mark things off of the school supply lists for the coming year.
Shop at secondhand stores and thrift stores first
We start at these stores for things that aren’t consumables – items like clothes, backpacks, rulers, lunchboxes, and shoes. (There’s a reason for this rule, which I’ll get back to later.)
What we’ve often found is that many families purge last year’s wardrobe late in the summer, cleaning out stuff that doesn’t fit any more or that their kids didn’t like or didn’t wear, and all of that stuff shows up in secondhand stores and consignment stores in a giant wave in August. It’s not hard at all to find new or nearly new children’s clothes, bags, and school supplies at really steep discounts at a secondhand store this time of the year.
We’re still picky about the shopping. We let our kids make the choices and we generally only pick things that appear to be new and/or well made.
Often, we can take care of almost all of our back to school clothes shopping at secondhand stores, with only a few items to pick up elsewhere. We have found great backpacks in such stores in the past as well.
Check for tax free holidays
If you do find yourself having to buy things like clothes, shoes, backpacks, and other such more expensive items, check to see if your state has a tax free holiday on clothing or other materials related to school. Many states do this in early August, though some tax free holidays spread into other parts of the year.
While this won’t be an enormous savings by itself, you’ll find that in many states with a tax free holiday, stores will push nice sales on those days to coincide with the holiday in order to pull in customers who might be shopping for such supplies.
Buy consumable school supplies at a single big box retailer
Trust me, after nine (10?) years of doing this, I’ve come to realize that there is no retailer that universally has the best price on all school supplies that your kid needs, but that the big box stores (namely Target and Wal-Mart) tend to be close enough on price on most of the stuff I buy – and ahead of other competitors such as dollar stores and office supply stores – that I just shop at one of those for school supplies.
This is something I’ve checked and checked again – in terms of just buying all of your school supplies in one place, picking all of them up at Wal-Mart or Target is almost always the best option. They won’t each have the lowest price on every single item, but unless you’re willing to store-hop to save $0.20 on a box of pencils or something akin to that, you’re better off picking one store, getting all of the supplies there, and sticking with it.
“What about price matching?” While price matching items from another store’s flyer can save you a little, I’ve often found that during back to school weeks, the prices on most of the sale items are really close. As I noted above, you can go to the customer service area and point out how a $0.40 item you just bought is actually $0.35 at another store and end up saving a few dollars overall, but you need to have the competitor’s flyer in hand when you do this.
“Why just consumable stuff?” The non-consumable stuff, like backpacks and lunch bags and rulers and so on, are usually handled through hand-me-downs and secondhand stores, as noted above. By the time we’re buying notebooks and pencils and glue at Target, our actual list is pretty short and usually just consists of those consumable items.
Don’t sweat matching the specific brand.
If a school supply list identifies a particular brand, don’t sweat matching that brand perfectly. In my experience, almost always, a brand is listed to identify a “preferred brand” when parents are looking at six different kinds of pencils and are unsure what to get.
As a frugal shopper, don’t worry about it. Get the inexpensive stuff. Get the $0.20 notebooks with a plain cover and the $0.05 plain folders. Don’t sweat finding the exact brand listed on the school supply list.
Yes, once in a while, you’ll find a teacher that’s a brand stickler. This is usually a new teacher that hasn’t yet had to deal with the realities of parents trying to make ends meet for a school supply list. Again, don’t sweat it – they’ll make do with whatever you buy.
Handle picky kids with an “upgrade allowance.”
Kids like to have notebooks and folders with designs on them. They like to have fancy pens. They like to have the glittery glue. That’s fine and all, but that’s also much more expensive than the bargain options.
Our solution – one that makes everyone happy – is that we give them an “upgrade allowance” on their school supplies. It’s usually about $5-10. Each child can “upgrade” some of their supplies to fancier versions – we’ll pay for the basic version and then the difference between the basic version and the nicer version comes out of their “upgrade allowance.”
Let’s say one of our kids desires a folder with Roman Reigns on it. A blank folder is $0.20. The Roman Reigns folder is $1. They can get the Roman Reigns folder, but it eats $0.80 of their “upgrade allowance.” That might mean that they have to choose ordinary glue instead of glitter glue or something like that.
I have one kid that absolutely loves nicer notebooks. Another kid of ours is a stickler for pens (like their dad, I guess). Another kid almost always wants folders with bizarre designs on them. Those kinds of “upgrades” come out of their upgrade allowance.
By allowing them this choice, it cuts down on arguments about other items that we purchase.
Get a cheap pack of stickers for personalization
One last thing that we do is that we get each child an inexpensive pack of stickers of their choice to personalize their notebooks and folders. We’ve also helped them make book covers out of paper bags so that they can personalize their school books, too.
This usually costs $0.50 or $1, but it gives them the chance to add some individuality to a pile of plain notebooks.
Again, one of our children usually chooses letters and neatly labels each notebook by purpose, while another kid often gets the goofiest stickers he can find and covers his notebooks with those things (last year, this involved stickers of a Japanese wrestler and the year before all of his stickers were French fries).
This costs $3 at most for our three kids and it really cuts down on the discussion about school supplies. They’re usually fine with the cheap notebooks if they can be heavily personalized. The reality is that what they want are notebooks and books and folders that are distinct from the items owned by their siblings and friends, and a bunch of markers (which we already have) and stickers enable plain inexpensive notebooks and folders to be made distinct at a very cheap price.
Even better, I find that this process tends to get all of them excited to go back to school. After a session or two of personalizing notebooks and packing their bag for the first day, they’re usually quite ready to get back to the school routine.
Final Thoughts
Back to school shopping is a reality of our August each year, and over the years Sarah and I have had to continually refine our practices in order to keep the costs of all of this back to school shopping low. Each year, we try a few new things, adapt some older things, retain things that were successful in previous years, and drop things that didn’t work out.
These seven things have become our consistent tactics, year in and year out. They worked well in preschool, early elementary, late elementary, and even into middle school without much of a hiccup. Compared to buying everything new at ordinary prices, these strategies easily cut our back to school cost by two thirds, if not more.
If you’re new to all of this, try out these tactics. Do a “first pass” for clothes, bags, and other things at secondhand stores and try to fulfill your needs there. For non consumable school supplies, check secondhand stores, but also save them at the end of the year and reuse them in subsequent years (we usually store them in backpacks). Buy all of your school supplies at a big box retailer and price match on the items that other retailers are selling for less. Buy the cheapest versions of items, let your child select just a few upgrades from that, then encourage them to personalize their notebooks and other items with art supplies you already have and a fresh pack of stickers. You’ll be surprised how much less you spend this way.
Good luck!
The post Seven Real Strategies for Back to School Shopping from a Parent of Three School Kids appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Source The Simple Dollar https://ift.tt/2w1Nln2
Money Fights: Here’s How to Stop Arguing About the Budget
But before we jump into the nitty-gritty of Dr. Stein’s money advice, let’s look at some recent facts: Fidelity’s annual Couples and Money study, conducted every year since 2007, found some positive results in 2018. Seven out of 10 couples surveyed felt they communicated at least “very well” about money.
Interestingly, 78% of those polled said they would be more comfortable talking about their full financial history over their full dating history. Hmmm. People must do embarrassing things once they’ve met on Tinder.
Not so surprisingly, the study showed bringing debt into a relationship causes discord with couples – whether they’re millennials, Gen Xers or Baby Boomers. The hardest hit? Seventy-four percent of millennials bring debt into their relationships, and almost half of them say it causes strife.
I think we’d all agree that debt — while often manageable — can feel like a burden.
So how should couples deal? Here’s one expert’s view.
Money and Marital Strife
Doria Lavagnino: For how many of your patients/clients would you say money plays a central role in their relationships?
Judie Stein: When a couple has gotten to the point of filing for divorce, money plays a role 99% of the time. In couple’s therapy, I’d say it’s about half.
Lavagnino: What are the top themes in money disputes amongst couples?
Stein: A biggie is agreeing on how money decisions are made: Is there a 50-50 split on deciding where money is spent, saved and invested? If not, why?
Often there is one person who either outearns the other or who voluntarily reduces his or her income temporarily to care for children or pursue a lifelong passion. Does the more monied partner have the right to dictate how all the household money is handled?
Power Imbalances
Stein: This is a generalization, but men are usually the higher earners, and when one person doesn't work, they both tend to value the earner's financial contributions more than the homemaker's contributions (which, of course, allow the higher earner's career to flourish in the first place).
When the woman is the higher earner, there is often resentment from her, because she’s often still putting in a second shift at home as a parent and homemaker.
In same-sex relationships, the higher earner's financial contribution still tends to be more highly valued than the homemaker's contribution, but there may be more disagreement or resentment about who stays home because the roles aren't always as clear.
Regardless of gender or sexual orientation, the higher-earning person often believes that the income belongs to him or her. This can create friction in mediation when it comes to dividing assets such as retirement accounts, which are considered marital assets if accrued during the marriage – regardless of who contributed to them.
Lavagnino: Do you have any recommendations on whether couples — both married and unmarried — should commingle assets?
Stein: It's really up to them. As I mentioned, there is often a power differential between the higher and lower earner that needs to be explored and addressed. I lean toward comingling income and paying bills jointly, but keeping separate assets (e.g., inheritance, significant savings from before the relationship).
Financial Infidelity
Lavagnino: What do you do if you find your partner lies to you about money?
Stein: Both parties need to recognize that this is a trauma that needs to be felt and fully repaired. As hard as it might be, explore the reasons behind why the lying happened in the first place. Also, try to understand what lying means to you and your partner, including any family history around lying.
The next step is to recognize what comes up emotionally for both people as a result of the situation. Lastly, facilitate empathy and deep understanding without judgment, followed by a meaningful, full apology and acceptance. Then, come up with safeguards and commitments about full transparency moving forward so that both partners can feel safe.
Lavagnino: So, you think a relationship can be repaired after financial ifidelity?
Stein: Yes, if both people are honest and committed.
Mitigating Money Fights
Lavagnino: What are some steps that couples can take to mitigate money fights?
Stein: Discuss the role of money in each person’s childhood, attitudes, beliefs and values about money. It’s important to do this to have insight into the emotional factors driving money behaviors and dynamics today.
Also, learning respectful ways to communicate, whether about money or any other topic. I recommend the book “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life” [it also comes with a companion workbook].
Couples should try to reach an agreement about spending, saving or any other hot-button issues related to money. And no matter what you think about your partner’s actions, don’t be insulting. It just makes things worse.
Be honest and use “I” statements instead of sounding accusatory. For example, rather than say, “You always avoid talking about money,” you might want to start with: “I feel like you shut me out when I want to discuss money.”
These are subtle cues, but the first phrase may put your partner on the defensive. The second is honest and only about how you feel. It’s possible your partner doesn’t even know [your feelings]!
Lavagnino: Let’s say that despite good intentions, you find yourself in a money fight. What do you do?
Stein: One person can say, “We’re in that cycle again. I trust that we can get through this in a kind and loving way, as we’ve done before. Let’s take a break now and come back to this when we can be more effective. I love you.”
Try to take a physical break to cool down without breaking off communication. (Easier said than done!) Revisit the topic with a compassionate tone. If despite trying, couples continue to hit a roadblock in their money communication, counseling or mediation may help.
Lavagnino: Why do you believe money is such a loaded topic?
Stein: Because money is personal, emotional, familial, cultural and powerful.
A Success Story
There you have it. Money is tricky. That said, there are real-life examples that provide hope. For instance, Lance Cothern, a CPA and blogger at the Money Manifesto, planned with his then-fiancée to pay off her more than $80,000 in student loan debt.
“We were both open about discussing money and how we used it,” says Cothern. “We had the same goals and values, which helped tremendously,” he said. Cothern knew that his wife’s debt wasn’t caused by bad money habits or by poor decisions, but so that she could get an education and work in an in-demand profession as a registered nurse.
He also said that while he saved money toward paying down her debt while engaged, he did not actually start to pay it down until they were married.
Do they fight about money? “We have slight disagreements on how we each spend our ‘fun money,’ but that’s it,” he added.
I think we’d all agree that it’s better to bicker over an impromptu massage once a year than to be unable to discuss money at all.
Doria Lavagnino is the co-founder of Centsai, a financial wellness platform for millennials and GenX. She is an entrepreneur and a mother of two girls. Her younger daughter just started a cat-sitting business and loves reading about smart money-making gigs on 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/2NbMvun
First 50 Funds Interview: Royal London Sustainable World Trust Mike Fox
Mike Fox, manager of Royal London Sustainable World Trust, gives Moneywise’s Helen Knapman the lowdown on his fund – a new addition to our First 50 Funds list for beginner investors.
What is the fund?
We invest in both global equities [company shares] and fixed income [such as bonds]. We have about 50 to 60 holdings in equities and up to 200 in fixed income.
The key point of differentiation is that this is a sustainable fund, which means it considers environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues alongside financial ones. This gives consumers the option to do something positive with their money.
How does the sustainable mandate work in practice?
Firstly, it’s worth noting that ethical and sustainable funds are quite different. Ethical is mainly about avoidance and negative screening, whereas sustainable is about positive screening.
The sectors we avoid completely are armaments and tobacco, and then after that, every company we come across we apply a positive test to. We look at the products and services of the company to see if it has a social benefit – for example, healthcare, technology, certain types of infrastructure, such as the supply of water and utilities.
Has sustainable investing increased in popularity?
About two to three years ago, there was a real increase in people putting money into the fund – there’s more of an acceptance of sustainability as a concept now.
How do you pick the stocks?
One way is to look at social opportunities and social issues. We then find companies that provide solutions for these issues, after which we do the financial analysis.
But to be clear, companies have to be attractive financially as well as from a sustainability perspective. On financials, we have two main criteria – that companies create value and provide long-term growth. In terms of equities, we have an average five-year holding period. But some stocks, such as pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, online search engine Google and London property developer Shaftesbury, we’ve held for 10 years.
What sustainable themes are you looking at?
Recently, we’ve been investing in electric and autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing.
In the past 12 months we’ve invested in Aptiv in the US and Valeo in France, which make components for electric and autonomous vehicles. Another area that is growing in the fund is natural, sustainable ingredients, fuelled by the trend for healthy eating. This could be companies that produce natural sweeteners, for example. Here we invest in a number of companies, including Symrise in Germany and Novozymes in Denmark.
When investing we apply a positive test to a company to see if has a social benefit
Going forward, automation is the biggest debate for us. Most people start with the idea that automation is negative because it can result in job losses, but it’s a lot more nuanced than that. Firstly, the jobs that are more likely to be automated are what’s called the three ‘ds’ – dull, dirty and dangerous. Secondly, there are certain countries with huge demographic issues, such as Japan [with its ageing population], which may have problems producing basic services without automation. Thirdly, people are very unimaginative – automation could actually lead to the creation of new jobs. We haven’t invested in any companies in this space, but we have been looking at Keyence in Japan and Trimble in the US.
What companies and sustainable themes have you been selling out of?
Thematic investing is quite slow-moving – there hasn’t been a recent theme we’ve sold out of, although about three or four years ago we sold out of the emerging markets theme as we thought it had played out from an investment perspective.
We think technology is socially and economically positive and that’s why we currently invest in it, but in future there is a risk that companies don’t respond to users’ requirements in terms of privacy. If these companies don’t evolve, it could become a regulatory and political issue, which would make it an investment risk. Amazon, for example, is always an interesting one to debate, as everyone has a view on it. We think its cloud computing and retail business has social positives, such as enabling smaller businesses to use the platform, but it’s also a marketplace disrupter.
The other time we sell is when sometimes we get it wrong or when an event happens that you couldn’t foresee. In the past 12 months, stocks we’ve sold include Qualcomm – a US semiconductor company – with persistent governance and intellectual property issues, and BT, which has had problems with the UK regulator and governance issues in Italy.
What’s been your best and worst investment decision?
The best was to invest in cloud computing – Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, all of which we still hold. The worst is BT.
What’s your top tip for a beginner investor?
Patience is everything – the money is made in the waiting, not in the doing. Leaving your investments alone is the hardest thing to do but it’s where you get the compounding effect.
Royal London Sustainable World Trust: Key stats
Launched: November 2012 (i)
Fund size: £460.39 million
OCF: 0.77% (i)
Yield: 0.99% (i)
(i) C Acc share class. Source: Royal London Sustainable World Trust factsheet, 31 May 2018.
The man behind the fund
Mike Fox joined Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) in August 2013, following the acquisition of The Co-operative Asset Management by the Royal London Group. As well as managing Royal London Sustainable World Trust, Mike is head of sustainable investments at RLAM. He first became a fund manager in November 2003, prior to which he was a deputy fund manager and an investment analyst. He originally trained and qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young.
| Five-year performance of Royal London Sustainable World Trust | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
| Royal London Sustainable World Trust C Acc GB | 23.56 | 10.16 | 9.3 | 16.27 | 18.06 |
| Benchmark (i) | 13.77 | 4.76 | 2.31 | 13.11 | 9.78 |
| (i) As Royal London Sustainable World Trust is a fund containing mixed asset classes it doesn't have a benchmark. So we've used its Investment Association sector - mixed investment 40%-85% shares. Source: FE, 12 July 2018, based on discrete performance. | |||||
Section
Free Tag
Related stories
Source Moneywise https://ift.tt/2LgFEOA
Four Ways You Could Be Hurting Your Credit Without Realizing It
Paying your bills on time is a great idea, stipulated! Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, paying your bills on time is not the only thing you need to do to earn great credit scores.
Credit scoring is considerably more complex than that. In fact, roughly two-thirds of the points in your credit scores have nothing to do with paying your bills in a timely manner.
There are, in fact, several ways to hurt your credit scores while never missing a payment.
Running Up Large Credit Card Balances
Roughly 30% of the points in both your VantageScore and FICO credit scores are based on your debt load. And, a large portion of that 30% is specific to how you use credit cards and the size of your balances compared to your credit limits, more formally called your revolving utilization ratio.
Revolving utilization is the relationship between your credit card limits and the credit card balances that appear on your credit reports. If you have $10,000 in available credit and you carry a $5,000 balance, your utilization ratio is a rather high 50%. When those balances climb, your revolving utilization ratios increase.
And as your revolving utilization ratio climbs, the impact on your credit scores will be more pronounced. As a result, if you’re in the habit of revolving large balances on your credit cards each month, you could be hurting your credit scores without realizing it, even if you never make any late payments on those accounts.
Paying Credit Cards at the Wrong Time of the Month
Do you make it a point to pay off your credit card balances in full each month? If so, kudos to you. You’re managing your cards well and saving money in interest fees at the same time.
However, just because your credit cards are paid in full each month does not mean your revolving utilization ratios, as described above, will reach 0%.
Credit card issuers typically only update your credit report once a month. An account update generally occurs shortly after your statement closing date, which is the end of your monthly billing cycle. Paying your balance to $0 by the due date generally ensures that you don’t have to pay interest on your purchases. However, it usually will not result in a $0 account balance on your credit reports.
If you want your credit reports to show a $0 balance — and you should — pay off your balance in full before the statement closing date. That way you avoid ever receiving a statement with a balance greater than zero, which is the same balance reported to the credit bureaus.
Closing Unused Credit Cards
Closing unused credit card accounts is not a good idea. It’s yet another move that often unexpectedly causes a credit score decrease — though not for the reason you might think.
You won’t lose credit for the age of the account (a common misconception). But unfortunately, closing an unused credit card with a $0 balance could backfire and trigger an increase in your revolving utilization ratio. Here’s why: When you close an account, the unused credit limit on that card is no longer considered by credit scoring systems.
So if you have four credit cards with a total credit limit of $10,000, and you’ve got a $2,000 balance spread out between two of them, your utilization ratio is a pretty respectable 20%. If you close one of the inactive cards — and say it has a $5,000 credit limit — your utilization ratio suddenly doubles to 40%, which scoring models consider risky.
Applying for Credit Too Often
Credit scoring models pay attention to how often you apply for new credit. When a lender or credit card issuer pulls a copy of your credit reports, a record of the credit check, known as a hard inquiry, is added.
Although not every hard inquiry will automatically lower your credit scores, some hard inquiries do have the potential to do so. Inquiries can lower your scores because they’re predictive of elevated credit risk. To be safe, it’s best to have a policy of only applying for new credit when you really need it.
More by John Ulzheimer:
- Why Are There Multiple Student Loans on My Credit Reports?
- What Your Credit Score Is Trying to Tell You
- About to Buy a House? Put Your Credit on Lockdown
John Ulzheimer is an expert on credit reporting, credit scoring, and identity theft. He has written four books on the topic and has been interviewed and quoted thousands of times over the past 10 years. With time spent at Equifax and FICO, Ulzheimer is the only credit expert who actually comes from the credit industry. He has been an expert witness in over 230 credit related lawsuits and has been qualified to testify in both federal and state courts on the topic of consumer credit.
The post Four Ways You Could Be Hurting Your Credit Without Realizing It appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Source The Simple Dollar https://ift.tt/2OSGCCS
Bricks and mortar or property shares: which is right for your portfolio?
The Investment Association (IA) will split its property sector in two this September. It’s not exactly a defining moment in history, but it is a helpful one for investors.
Instead of the current mishmash of some 48 open-ended funds investing in anything from UK office blocks to Asian property company shares, there will be two far more distinct categories: funds investing in ‘bricks and mortar’ and funds investing in shares of property-related companies.
Here is our guide to which type of fund is best for you.
Bricks and mortar
This type of fund invests in physical property – office blocks, warehouses and student quarters – which is let to commercial or residential tenants, providing an income through the rental yield and hopefully some capital returns.
They have two main benefits: they can be good diversifiers in a wider portfolio, as the commercial property market tends to behave differently from stock markets, and they generally offer a decent level of income.
On the other hand, they are ‘illiquid’: as any homeowner will tell you, it can take a long time to buy or sell a building, so these funds have to hold some money in cash. If investors sell in droves and this cash buffer isn’t enough to meet redemptions, these funds can be forced to suspend trading, for a time. This happened in 2016, after the EU referendum, and was seen very negatively by some. But I think it was the right thing to do, as it stopped panic-selling in its tracks and most property funds regained their pre-Brexit values within a year. But it does mean that if you need instant access to your money, you may want to choose another option.
Property shares
Like any shares, property shares are correlated in the short term with stock market movements. It’s only over the longer term that returns are more linked to the underlying physical property market. The advantages are that you can buy and sell shares relatively quickly and these funds don’t need a stash of cash to deal with investor flows. They will also contain a lot of shares from companies in different sectors, rather than a small number of large and expensive buildings.
Post-Brexit, shares in the property sector fell significantly and property investment trusts went to a discount – up to 30% in some cases. So while investors can still access their money in these funds or trusts, stock market falls and big discounts mean that they could be selling at a loss.
Since Brexit, more investors favour property funds
Which to choose?
Since Brexit, more investors have favoured property shares. But I’m still a fan of both, as long as you understand the risks. Investors need to decide if they can stomach the possibility of shorter-term volatility in property shares, in exchange for easier access, or if they are happy to invest money they won’t need in a hurry in bricks and mortar.
Premier Pan European Property Share is one of my preferred share options. It invests in high-quality companies in the UK and Europe that actively manage their property portfolios. It has a yield of 3.7%.
I also like F&C Real Estate Securities, which invests in the same regions, but also ‘shorts’ companies where the managers think the price of shares will fall.
My preferred investment trust is TR Property Trust. It invests in UK and European property shares, and also has a small amount invested in physical property. Its managers look for well-run businesses in retail, office, residential and industrial sectors.
For bricks and mortar funds, I like Janus Henderson UK Property, which mostly invests in commercial property and related assets. The managers focus on high-quality tenants on long leases, a significant portion of which are linked to inflation. The fund has one of the highest occupancy rates in its sector and one of the highest yields.
Past performance is not a reliable guide to future returns. You may not get back the amount originally invested, and tax rules can change over time. Darius’s views are his own and do not constitute financial advice.
DARIUS McDERMOTT is managing director at Chelsea Financial Services and FundCalibre
Section
Free Tag
Related stories
Source Moneywise https://ift.tt/2PvBcif
الاشتراك في:
الرسائل (Atom)