3 Ways to Protect Yourself From Scammers in Hurricane Florence Aftermath

Although Hurricane Florence is long gone, the effects of the storm are still evident throughout the states impacted by its wrath.

Officials are warning well-meaning citizens of scams targeting everyone from homeowners looking to rebuild to people wishing to donate toward the effort.

How to Avoid Hurricane Florence Scams

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offered a blog post this month that highlighted some nefarious practices that residents are at risk of encountering in the days — or even the weeks and months — after a storm or other natural disaster. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Protect Your Personal Information

Ask for identification before you share your Social Security or account numbers.

“Scammers sometimes pose as government officials and ask you for your financial information or money to apply for aid that you can request on your own for free,” wrote FTC consumer education specialist Colleen Tressler.

She emphasized that government officials will never ask for money in exchange for information.

Verify Your Contractor’s Credentials

The FTC also warned against debris removal and cleanup scams. Be skeptical of people who promise immediate cleanup or debris removal, and check licensing information before paying a contractor or signing a contract. As with any normal work you’d have done on your property, get a written estimate and signed contract.

Make Sure That Charity Checks Out

What about those wishing to lend a financial hand after a disaster like Hurricane Florence? The FTC says to research groups soliciting donations, and cross-check your research with a database that tracks charitable organizations. Don’t contribute by cash or gift card, but rather, use a check or credit card so your payment can be tracked.

The North Carolina Attorney General’s office told local news station ABC11 this week that it received several complaints about charity scams.

If you suspect a scammer is targeting you, report the incident to your state attorney general’s office or the FTC.

Lisa Rowan is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make 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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17 Solitary Ways for Introverts to Make Money (No Conversation Required)

New Data Shows That the Online Gig Economy is Much Smaller Than We Thought

Nearly a decade after Uber debuted, the U.S. Department of Labor has started tracking how many Americans make money though it and similar apps. And it turns out we might be overestimating the power of the gig economy.

Last year, roughly 990,000 people logged on to walk dogs with Rover, build IKEA furniture with TaskRabbit, drive for Lyft or Uber or do a number of odd — or not so odd — jobs through dozens of online employers. About 701,000 workers performed other online-based work-from-home jobs like graphic design, data entry or teaching English to Chinese students with sites like VIPKID.

If you look at both categories of work, they account for 1% of the total labor market. That’s peanuts when compared to some previous research.

Specifically, the BLS refers to this new data as electronically-mediated employment (sigh). Despite the bureaucratic jargon, it does dig deeper into what most folks consider the gig economy than a similar report the BLS released on contingent employment earlier this year.

And here’s another gig-economy myth these new numbers call into question: that these are just side hustles to make a little extra cash.

More than 1.1 million workers do this type of work full time. Only 26% of those who did electronically-mediated work did so as a second job or for some extra cash during the week.

The Penny Hoarder is currently analyzing the underlying survey data for an even deeper look at the gig economy, but there are some things we’ve already learned.

About half of those working electronically-mediated jobs have a bachelor’s degree or higher, which is nine percentage points greater than the economy as a whole.

And black workers accounted for 17% of the online gig economy, which is greater than their 12% of the overall labor market.

There are still questions about the gig economy’s slice of the U.S. labor market. And now that the government is finally tracking it, we might get those answers soon.

Alex Mahadevan is a data journalist at The Penny Hoarder.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make 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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Don’t Panic Yet if Your Public Student Loan Forgiveness Petition Was Denied

The Department of Education released a report this month that detailed results from the first group of applicants to the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF).

The program was established in 2007 to offer student loan relief to public servants; the first “class” of eligible borrowers was able to apply for forgiveness in October 2017. According to the report:

• The department received nearly 33,000 applications from over 28,000 borrowers as of June 30, 2018.
• Of those, more than 20,500 applications were denied because borrowers did not meet the program’s requirements.
• Another 8,100 applications were rejected because they were missing information.

Only 289 applications were approved for forgiveness by the end of June, according to the department’s data report and press release, “resulting in $5.52 million in processed discharges for 96 unique borrowers.”

Again, for the folks in the back: More than 28,000 people submitted applications to have their loans forgiven, but only 96 were successful.

Is the PSLF Program Doomed?

The Department of Education release explained that borrowers whose applications were denied for eligibility reasons have been contacted to see if they qualify for the “temporary expanded” public service loan forgiveness (TEPSLF) program, which may cover borrowers who followed a payment plan that didn’t qualify for standard PSLF.

TEPSLF was created in May 2018 as a second-chance pool for applicants who had direct loans and worked for qualifying employers but were on the wrong payment plan for part of the repayment period. Borrowers who made payments under a graduated repayment plan, extended repayment plan, consolidated standard repayment plan or consolidated graduated repayment plan may be able to qualify for TEPSLF. The $350 million fund is dispersed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Slate’s Jordan Weissmann struggled to get details from the Department of Education about why PSLF applications were denied.

But student loan attorney Adam Minsky wrote on his blog that it’s not time for borrowers to panic.

“So many people were not meeting all of the eligibility requirements back in 2007-2008, as the program was not well-publicized then and [income-based repayment] didn’t even exist,” Minsky wrote. “I would expect the approval rate to go up steadily during the next few years.”

He also noted that it’s possible the 28% of applications that were rejected for errors will be approved once they’re resubmitted.

“Borrowers presently on track for PSLF should continue to keep up with the annual requirements and maintain very good records of their payments and employment histories,” he advised.

Lisa Rowan is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make 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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The Secret Trick These Readers Used to Earn up to $278 by Online Shopping

How to Communicate with Your Customers Effectively on All Your Distribution Channels

As a business owner, you need to communicate with many people on a daily basis.

You’re used to delegating tasks to your employees and dealing with merchants, accountants, lawyers, bankers, and everyone else who makes your operation possible.

Communication skills are also important in your personal life. You need to manage the relationships with your family and friends while running a company at the same time.

But how well are you communicating with your customers?

Effective customer communication is the backbone of your business. Your ability to communicate can make or break your marketing campaigns and determine whether you can optimize the customer experience.

You could have a great product, service, or promotion, but if you can’t communicate these things to your customers, your business could struggle.

The Internet has made it possible for brands and consumers to contact each other from virtually anywhere at any time. You need to recognize this reality and use it to your advantage.

With so many different distribution channels at your disposal, it’s imperative you apply your communication skills on all of these platforms.

I see this particular problem often when giving consultations to business owners. They know how to write a perfect email newsletter that converts, but their Facebook posts are awful. Or they have an awesome Instagram marketing strategy but struggle with blogging.

To be successful, you need to be able to communicate with your customers on all your distribution channels. I’ll explain what you need to do to make this happen.

Create an authentic voice

Your communication style and voice need to be consistent across every channel.

This helps create authenticity. The majority of consumers don’t think that brands are distributing authentic content.

Furthermore, 86% of consumers say authenticity is an important factor when determining whether they’ll support a brand.

What does this tell you?

Your customers want you to be authentic. Establishing an authentic voice will give you a huge advantage over your competitors.

All your content needs to sound as if it’s coming from the same person, even if it’s not.

For example, you might write your blogs, but someone from your staff may be in charge of email newsletters. A third person could be responsible for your social media content.

There is nothing wrong with delegating tasks this way, but it can create a discrepancy when it comes to being authentic.

The best way to overcome this hurdle is establish some ground rules. Create a writing guide that everyone who produces content can reference.

Here are some examples of things you could include in this guide:

• always spell out the word percent instead of using %
• write from the first-person perspective
• use the Oxford comma

You can even take this guide one step further. For example, you could say that every piece of content you produce, whether it’s a blog, email, or social media post, always needs to start with an inspirational quote.

If your writing is consistent, it creates authenticity.

That way when your customers engage with your brand on multiple channels, they’ll feel they’re listening to the same voice.

Monitor your comments sections

Part of having effective communication means being active on as many platforms as possible.

Your increased social media presence makes it easier for your customers to reach you. Don’t worry—this is a good thing.

But if you’re not constantly monitoring your comments, you’re failing your customers when it comes to communication.

Social media is one of the top channels for consumers to voice their complaints.

Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. You’ve got to understand their thought process and mindset.

They just experienced some sort of problem with your business. It could have been related to one of your products, services, or employees.

On top of the issue, they took time out of their busy day to let you know about it by commenting on one of your social media posts. Even though this comment might be negative, it’s still a good sign.

Why? You haven’t lost this customer yet.

Research shows that 96% of unhappy customers don’t complain. They just leave and don’t come back.

If one of your customers is complaining via social media, you still have a chance to keep their business as long as you respond in a timely fashion.

Studies show that 84% of consumers expect a business to respond to their social media comments within 24 hours of posting.

But this also depends on the platform. For instance, 72% of users on Twitter expect brands to respond within an hour.

I know what you’re thinking. How could you possibly keep track of all your social media comments each day while trying to run your company at the same time?

Those of you who don’t have a social media manager or the budget to hire one need to take advantage of my favorite time-saving social media marketing tools.

Certain tools can notify you whenever someone comments on one of your posts. You can get these notifications on one platform instead of having to monitor each social site individually.

Segment your email subscribers

For your email marketing campaigns to be successful, you need to make sure you’re delivering relevant content to your subscribers.

After all, your customers have different wants, needs, and preferences. It’s nearly impossible to create content that can appeal to all your customers.

That’s why segmenting your subscribers will improve your communication with everyone.

Here’s a staggering fact you need to take into consideration.

A person who works in an office gets on average 121 emails a day. Assuming they work five days per week, that translates to over 600 emails per week and more than 31,000 emails per year.

Now, let’s say you email your subscribers once a week, which is a reasonable assumption.

Your messages are just a fraction of a percent of the total number of emails your customers receive. If your content isn’t adding value to their lives, they won’t engage with it.

Surveys indicate that 73% of marketers say their top priority is to create more engaging content.

Segmenting your subscribers will make your communication with them more effective. Here’s why.

Let’s say you run an ecommerce clothing business. You ship products globally, but the majority of your customers are located in the United States.

Subscribers who are men living in Miami, Florida, shouldn’t be getting the same emails as women living in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Emailing a promotion for bathing suits and tank tops in December to all your customers is not an effective way to manage your communication. But if you segment your subscribers, it will help ensure your marketing emails are more relevant to each recipient.

Add live chat to your website

As a consumer, I love using live chat. It’s just so simple.

I don’t need to pick up the phone, wait on hold, and talk to someone. It also saves me a trip back to the store. Plus, I buy so many things online that it’s not even practical or realistic for me to visit businesses in-person after making a purchase.

Live chat makes things easier. As a consumer, I’m not alone in that preference.

In fact, 73% of consumers say live chat is their preferred method of customer service communication. This ranked as the top option.

Here’s a look at the reasons why people prefer live chat:

If live chat makes your customers’ lives easier and it’s their preferred method of communication, why aren’t you using it?

Some of you may just not know where to start. I get it. New technology can be intimidating.

But you need to be able to adapt and make changes if you want to survive.

Your live chat feature should be easily accessible on your website. Make sure you respond quickly to these messages. Your staff need to be knowledgeable and properly trained for this communication method to be effective.

If you need help setting this up, refer to my guide on how to provide better customer service by implementing live chat.

Use language your audience can understand

This relates to the concept of authenticity.

Your customers want to communicate with a person. It shouldn’t feel as if they’re dealing with a robot or some nameless and faceless brand.

Use language your audience can relate to.

Your content shouldn’t sound like it’s coming from a doctor or a lawyer, even if it is. Speak in terms your customers use every day.

Just make sure you keep it professional. I normally wouldn’t recommend using slang, but there are times when it’s OK if that terminology fits with your overall brand image.

For example, a company that sells surfboards might use terms such as rad, stoked, or gnarly in its marketing emails. This would resonate with its target audience as opposed to a formal greeting, like Dear Sir or Madam.

As far as the exact language you’re using, that’s a judgment call on your part. But I recommend keeping communication casual and conversational.

Make sure your brand message is clear

Why are you in business?

Outside of the obvious financial reasons, you must have other motivation for operating. You need to be able to tell your customers why you exist and how you can make their lives better.

That can be conveyed in your brand message.

But if you fail to communicate your message or if it’s too ambiguous, you won’t have a positive impact on your customers.

Here is a great example of a brand message from TOMS shoes:

Buying products from this company means you’re helping people internationally.

TOMS helps provide those less fortunate with shoes, clean water, vision needs, and safe births. The company even supports a bullying prevention campaign.

The message is clear.

TOMS has a dedicated landing page explaining what they give, and the message is on other parts of its website as well.

You don’t need to be a nonprofit organization or affiliated with certain charities to have a strong brand message.

For example, let’s say you have a meal delivery service.

Your brand message can convey something along the lines of helping busy professionals eat healthy.

Once you’re able to identify your brand message, make sure you can display it clearly on all your distribution channels.

Be consistent

Just like authenticity, consistency is also key when it comes to effective communication.

I mentioned earlier creating a guide to keep your writing style consistent on every channel. But you can take this one step further with all your promotions as well.

It all starts with your goal.

Before you run any type of marketing campaign, you need to clearly identify this goal. What do you want the result of this campaign to be?

It could be acquiring more website traffic, adding email subscribers, increasing your social media followers, or driving sales to your newest product.

Whatever your goal is, the easiest way to achieve it is by being consistent on all your channels.

If you run a promotion on Instagram, make sure your website shows the sale too. Otherwise, it can create confusion for your customers.

Take a look at this example from Jetblue:

The company posted this promotion on its Facebook page.

Its fall sale advertises flights starting at $49 one-way.

There are certain restrictions and conditions for the sale. Customers need to book their flights by a certain day and travel within a certain time frame as well. There are even a couple of blackout dates.

Either way, Jetblue clearly communicated this promotion in this Facebook post.

Now if customers navigate to its website, they’ll see the consistency:

As you can see from what I’ve highlighted, the same sale is being advertised.

All the terms and conditions are the same, and the ad uses the same phrase, “Get going, Pumpkin!”

Even though the style, placement, format, and images differ on each distribution channel, the message remains the same.

In addition to improving the way you communicate with your customers, being consistent will ultimately help you increase conversions.

Know which channels your customers prefer

You need to be able to communicate with your customers on all your distribution channels. This should go without saying.

However, it’s important for you to recognize which networks your customers are using.

Now you can prioritize this communication based on the platforms your customers prefer.

For example, let’s say you segment your target audience with generational marketing.

After doing this, you’ve discovered that the vast majority of your customers are Baby Boomers. Now you need to figure out how to reach them.

Based on this research, it wouldn’t make sense for you to focus on Instagram and Snapchat if you’re marketing to Baby Boomers.

This would obviously be much different if you were targeting Millennials or Generation X.

You should still have active profiles on as many platforms as possible, but you need to know which ones are reaching your customers.

Conclusion

Communication is an important aspect in both life and business.

As a marketer, you need to be able to effectively communicate with your customers on all your distribution channels.

Learn how to create an authentic voice.

Monitor your comments on social media and respond to those customers, especially if they’re voicing a complaint.

Segment your email subscribers to deliver the most relevant content to everyone.

Implement a live chat feature on your website.

Speak in terms your audience can understand. Make sure you clearly define and communicate your brand message across every channel.

Be consistent. Figure out which channels your customers use the most, and prioritize those means of communication.

If you follow the tips I’ve outlined in this guide, you’ll be able to improve your customer communication tactics across all your distribution channels.

How are you leveraging your distribution channels to effectively communicate with your customers?

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Our ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ Coupon Strategy

My recent article on how to find and get the most value out of your local discount grocer led to a lot of great follow-up questions and comments from readers.

One reader, Laurie, wrote in:

What about coupons? I still clip coupons from the Sunday paper and use the Redplum and Target apps to nab coupons. What does your couponing strategy look like?

Sarah and I have tried a lot of couponing strategies over the years. We used to be very adamant about clipping coupons from the Sunday paper and even used a coupon binder for several years.

Over the years, though, I learned several things about couponing.

First, the more time you invest, the more the returns diminish. I view couponing as one of those things where you’re investing your personal time to get a financial return on that time. If you can find a $2 coupon and have it in hand for a minute’s effort, then it’s well worth it. On the other hand, if you’ve already clipped $25 worth of coupons and are spending a lot of time trying to eke out another dollar or two in savings, then it’s no longer worth it.

I have found, over and over again, that if I’m spending more than five or 10 minutes on grabbing coupons for my next shopping trip, I’m very quickly reaching the point where it’s not worth my additional time. Almost all of the value I find in coupons comes in the first few minutes of searching and clipping, so it’s a good idea to stop right then and there.

Second, name brand coupons rarely make an item as inexpensive as the store brand version. If a store brand item is $1.99 and the name brand is $2.49 and I can only find a $0.40-off coupon, then the store brand is still cheaper.

To put it simply, a name brand item has to have a pretty nice coupon for it to be a winner over a store brand item or a generic item. A $1 off coupon might look nice, but if the item is already $0.75 more expensive than the store brand, I’m really only saving a quarter.

Third, there typically aren’t coupons for a large portion of my grocery list. A lot of my grocery shopping is spent in the produce section or the dry good bins section. I do buy some items in the aisles, but a lot of it is household supplies and toiletries.

To tell the truth, most of our coupon use is actually for coupons for toiletries and household supplies, not food items. Most food items we purchase are simply not ones for which coupons are found regularly.

All of that being said, couponing does play a small role in our overall grocery shopping strategy. It’s just not the centerpiece, because the time and effort we would have to put into couponing to actually save a notable amount of money simply wouldn’t be worth it. Why? The other tactics we use save us a lot of money just by default, and the value provided by coupons is eaten up by those practices for the most part.

I refer to our couponing as “lowest hanging fruit” couponing, because we’re really only looking for the obvious wins at a quick glance, because the time invested beyond that never pays off. Here’s how we get to that point.

SnipSnap is an app I use on my phone that pops up coupons automatically upon entering a store. Often, it’ll find things like “30% off any item in this store” type coupons, which is just pure savings. This doesn’t typically happen at my usual grocery stores, but it does happen at a lot of specialty stores, like if I’m going to Jo-Ann Fabrics to pick up some yarn for my wife (who’s a prodigious crocheter) or if I’m going to PetSmart to find some pet food for one of my children’s pets (two of them have quirky diets).

SnipSnap checks my GPS location in the background and, if it sees that I’m close to or inside a store, it checks to see if there are any store-wide coupons available for that specific store and, if there is, it just fires off a popup alert for me. I tap on the alert and there’s the coupon. No effort at all – this is pure low hanging fruit.

Store brand coupons are actually a real thing at some stores, where the grocery flyer will actually have coupons for the store brand version of items. Since I already download the grocery flyer when making my meal plan and grocery list, snagging any coupons that I notice is a good choice.

One store that does this quite often is Target. I sometimes shop at Target for household items and the Target app, which I keep on my phone, typically includes several coupons for their various store brands (Up and Up, Archer Farms, and so on). I check the app as I’m strolling through the store looking for whatever household item I’m looking for, and if they have a coupon for a store brand staple that I know I’ll use, I’ll typically pick it up because a store brand with an additional coupon is usually well below the name brand version. I recently stocked up on dry pasta doing this very thing.

General coupon apps aren’t very useful for me, but I do look at them if I’m standing in the checkout aisle. What I’m looking for are coupons for any name brand items in my cart. I find that about 20% of the time, I find a coupon of some sort, which basically is as good as finding money on the ground in the checkout aisle. I generally use the SmartSource and Red Plum apps for this.

An example: I was recently at the store and needed sugar for a recipe and the C&H brand sugar was on sale, making it the least expensive five pound bag there (I think there’s a store brand that’s usually cheaper, but not that day). As I was standing in the checkout, I flipped through the Smart Source app and lo and behold there was a $1 off coupon for C&H sugar. That’s as good as finding a dollar bill, which is a lot better use of my time in the checkout than looking at the cover of gossip magazines or checking Facebook to see pictures of my neighbor’s cat.

The lazy Sunday coupon flyer is an occasional thing because we don’t subscribe to a print Sunday paper, but if I’m somewhere where there’s a Sunday paper sitting around and I’m just sitting there, I’ll glance through the coupons and grab any that seem like they might be something we’d use.

Something I’ve noticed with newspaper coupons is that, almost always, if you wait two or three weeks, the exact item that you have a coupon for goes on sale at the store before the coupon expires. While I have no evidence of this, I have a feeling that this is a common strategy for food retailers in order to bump sales numbers. They’ll run coupons one week, then work with stores to have items on sale a few weeks later. If you just hold onto the coupon, you can hit both. This often puts the value of the (usually) name brand item well below the store brand version.

I don’t usually have a whole lot of coupons when doing this. The ones I do have are in an envelope and I just check them when I’m making a grocery list, cross checking them with the grocery store flyer. Having a coupon for a name brand item alone is not enough to get me to add that to my grocery list because (a) the coupon alone usually doesn’t make the item much different in price than the normal store brand and (b) there’s probably a sale in that store coming up that I can stack the coupon on, making it actually worthwhile. If that doesn’t work out? I ditch the coupon when it expires – no big deal. This takes maybe thirty seconds when writing out my grocery list.

A final tip: Shop at discount grocers using a grocery list as a starting point. For me, that simple method alone is far better than an extensive couponing strategy. A good discount grocer has strong prices by default and they tend to be super competitive with their store brand prices, which means that name brand coupons really aren’t all that effective unless you’re stacking them on top of a sale already, as I noted above.

To put it simply, I got far better results simply switching to doing meal planning and making a grocery list and sticking to that list than I ever got from just going to the store with coupons and only a vague plan as to what to buy. Also, the cost benefit of switching to a discount grocer for most grocery shopping – in my case, switching from Hy Vee to Faraway – was worth more than coupons ever saved me, even with substantial time investment in the coupons. A third point – buying mostly store brands is a far better money saver than heavy couponing, too.

Not only that, these “low-hanging fruit” techniques give me most of the value I was getting from coupons anyway. Yes, I’m probably missing a handful of coupons that might save me a few dollars all told, but I would spend substantial time finding those coupons, and that’s just not worth it. An easy-to-find coupon that I stumble across in the checkout line that saves me $1 is great; investing an hour to find several $0.50 off coupons that barely add up to $5 in savings is not.

If you’re thinking about couponing, start with smarter grocery shopping strategies first. Make a meal plan. Make a grocery list. Shop at a discount grocer. Buy mostly store brands. Once you have that in place, coupons provide much less value anyway, so stick with the very easy wins.

Good luck!

More by Trent Hamm: 

• How I Shop: Specific Tricks for Your Next Trip to the Grocery Store
• $1 Meal Tactics: Saving Big on Food, a Buck at a Time
• How to Identify (and Take Advantage of) ‘Loss Leaders’ in Grocery and Department Store Flyers

The post Our ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ Coupon Strategy appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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I’m Happily Renting, but My Mom Thinks I’m an Idiot for Not Buying a House

Dear Happily Renting,

Homeowners’ memories of the homebuying process just can’t be trusted.

So many homeowners have reminded me — a fellow proud renter — how much their mortgage costs each month compared to my rent. They are so very willing to tell me about the equity they are gaining the longer they own their homes. But they rarely volunteer wise knowledge about their down payments, closing costs, homeowner association fees and property taxes, or how much they spent replacing the dishwasher last summer.

Buying a home isn’t the mark of adult stability it used to be. A 2018 survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that almost half of respondents said they don’t make enough money to even start house hunting. A similar percentage said they have too much debt or not enough savings to think about buying a house.

Want more statistical ammunition? Last year, Bloomberg News reported that renters outnumber homeowners in 52 of America’s 100 largest cities.

Aside from economic factors like wage stagnation and our crippling collective student debt burden, the decision to rent is deeply personal. Renting provides mobility for those with an unshakeable case of wanderlust or who anticipate frequent career changes. It can be a testing ground for partners who want to make sure they can live together without ruining the romance. It can provide peace of mind to know that your monthly expenses will be relatively fixed — and that you’ll never have to fix the dishwasher yourself.

But you probably know all that. What you need now to fend off the scolding from homeowners is a simple mantra to repeat whenever (and every single time) someone gets on your case.

I will suggest a very simple one:

“Renting is the right choice for me right now.”

Say it out loud. Say it with conviction. Say it even if you’re not sure renting is actually your first choice, but your bank account commands otherwise. You do not need to justify your choices to anyone (even your mother!). You do not need to feel compelled to clap back with attitude. You can stick to your mantra with a smile.

Have a tricky money question? Write to Dear Penny at https://ift.tt/2QdRE6k

Lisa Rowan is a personal finance expert and senior writer at The Penny Hoarder, and the voice behind Dear Penny. For more practical money tips, visit www.thepennyhoarder.com.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make 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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How I Saved $150 While Exploring the Wilderness

Dosh App Review: Use Your Smartphone to Double Dip With Cash-Back Rewards

Millions of people use rewards credit cards for regular spending and recurring bills with the goal of racking up cash-back or travel rewards. The Dosh app, which can be downloaded to your smartphone from the Google Play Store or the Apple Store, allows you to effectively “double-dip” and earn an additional layer of rewards when you shop.

With the Dosh app, you earn cash-back for purchases you make with a linked credit card (or debit card) at a participating store. Stores and offers change all the time, but the Dosh app often includes popular stores you probably shop at anyway. Examples include Walmart, Sam’s Club, Shoe Carnival, Walgreens, and Target.

How Does Dosh Work?

Getting started with Dosh is simple if you have a smartphone since the app is free and easy to download with the click of a button. Once you add the Dosh app to your phone, you’ll add your favorite rewards or travel credit card (or a debit card) to your account. Ideally, you want to add the card you use the most since this is the card that will earn cash-back with the Dosh app.

From that point, all you have to do is pay with your linked card at thousands of stores and restaurants that partner with the Dosh app. Whenever you make a purchase at a participating store, the percentage of cash-back you earn will be added to your Dosh account automatically. While the average rate of return through Dosh is 2% to 3%, some stores pay up to 10% cash-back.

In terms of cashing out with the app, getting your hands on your earnings is a piece of cake. The Dosh app lets you transfer your rewards to your bank account or to a PayPal account. You can also donate your earnings to charity directly through the app.

Earning cash-back with Dosh is easy. You don’t have to download receipts to qualify, nor do you have to register your purchases. It all happens automatically when you register your card, so your only real responsibility is signing up for the app and using the linked credit card when you shop. It’s as simple as that.

Should You Bother Earning Cash-Back through Dosh?

If you’re looking for a way to earn some easy money on the side, there are many ways to do just that. You can take online surveys with websites like UserTesting.com and InboxDollars.com, or you can log into Swagbucks.com to earn rewards when you watch videos, print coupons, or surf the web.

The Dosh app offers yet another way to earn money on your regular purchases, and you don’t have to perform any tasks to earn rewards, either. Still, you still may be wondering if downloading the app is worth it. While there are a ton of variables that will determine how much cash-back you earn, for most people, the answer is “yes.”

The main reason to consider downloading the Dosh app is the fact that it’s free. You don’t lose anything if you don’t wind up shopping at participating stores as often as you think, yet you have a lot to gain if you do shop at stores that work with the app.

As of this writing, for example, Sam’s Club is offering 2% back through the Dosh app. If you do your grocery shopping at Sam’s Club and spend $700 per month, you’ll earn $14 in easy cash-back every month — or over $168 in cash-back over the course of a year. You don’t have to do anything “extra” to earn this cash-back since it added to your Dosh wallet automatically.

Also remember that you can pair this card’s earnings with a credit card that doles out rewards. Considering the Chase Freedom® is offering 5% back on your first $1,500 spent in wholesale clubs and department stores or with the Chase Pay app the final quarter of 2018, you could wind up earning 7% back at Sam’s Club for three months by using the Dosh app and linking it with your Chase Freedom® card.

• Related: Chase Freedom® Review

Also note that, overall, Dosh has a good reputation when it comes to securing your data from hackers and thieves. According to the company, Dosh uses bank-level, encrypted security. They do not store your password, credit or debit data, or bank account information in the app or on their servers, either. All purchases made using Dosh are also encrypted. To add an extra layer of security, Dosh does ask you to re-verify your email when you sign up.

Dosh Highlights:

• Earn up to 10% cash-back (usually 2% to 3%) when you use the app and a linked credit card to make a purchase at a participating store.
• You can earn cash-back with Dosh on top of rewards you earn with a cash-back or travel credit card.
• Cash-back is added to your account automatically, so there is no work required on your part.
• You can cash-out your rewards to your bank account or PayPal account once you hit the required minimum of $25. You can also donate your cash-back to any charity of your choice.
• You can refer friends to Dosh to earn more cash-back. Right now the app is offering $5 for each referral who signs up for the app and links a credit card.
• You can earn cash-back on in-person and online purchases made with a linked card and the Dosh app.

Earning Cash-Back with Dosh: The Downsides

It’s hard to argue against an app that lets you earn cash-back on regular purchases, but the Dosh app still isn’t perfect. Just like any other offer, there are a handful of cons to be aware of before you sign up:

• You must have a non-VOIP phone number to sign up for the Dosh app. In other words, you can’t have phone service that isn’t conducted over IP networks. (On a personal note, I tried to sign up for Dosh with my T-Mobile phone number I’ve had for five years but my phone number didn’t work with the app.)
• You’re required to link a credit card plus a bank account or PayPal account to the Dosh app, which could make you feel uncomfortable regardless of how secure the app is. If you do sign up, you may feel more comfortable linking a credit card to your account instead of a debit card since credit cards offer better liability against fraud.
• You do need to build up a balance of $25 in cash-back before you can cash out to your bank account, PayPal, or to a charity of your choice. If you don’t shop very often, it may take a while to reach the required level for redemptions.
• The Dosh app is only available to U.S. residents, which makes it a no-go if you live abroad.
• Many reports note it can take up to 90 days for cash to be added to your account after a qualifying purchase. On their website, Dosh notes this is because “online offers require 60-90 days for the merchants return period to expire before any cash-back is deposited in your Dosh wallet.”

Should You Sign Up for Dosh?

If you’re making purchases at stores that partner with Dosh anyway, you have little to lose by signing up for the app. You’ll earn cash-back when you make qualifying purchases with your linked credit card, and you don’t have to do anything extra for the rewards to accrue. Also note that, since you can rack up cash-back with Dosh on top of rewards you earn with a credit card, this app offers a smart way to double dip.

Of course, the Dosh app isn’t perfect. Not everyone wants to link a credit card and their bank account to a smartphone app, and some stores pay out as little as 1% cash-back. Downloading the app may not be worth it if you rarely shop or mostly visit small local stores instead of big chains.

At the end of the day, this makes the Dosh app ideal for the right kind of consumer. You may want to consider the Dosh app if:

• You spend a lot of money at major chain stores regularly and know you could earn a significant amount of cash-back each month.
• You love earning cash-back or travel rewards with your favorite rewards credit card and want a way to boost your earnings over time.
• You’re comfortable downloading apps to your smartphone and don’t mind offering up your credit card and banking details.
• You believe you could refer a ton of friends and want to earn $5 for each referral.
• You don’t mind waiting until you have $25 in rewards each time you want to cash out.

Should you sign up for Dosh? Only you can decide. At the very least, you can give it a try to see if the cash-back you earn is worth the memory it takes up in your phone.

Holly Johnson is an award-winning personal finance writer and the author of Zero Down Your Debt. Johnson shares her obsession with frugality, budgeting, and travel at ClubThrifty.com.

More by Holly Johnson:

• How to Make Money
• Can You Score Better Travel Deals Using VPN?
• Why I’m Only Focusing on One Half of ‘FIRE’
• Beam Review: Can You Really Earn Up to 4% With This Savings Account?

The post Dosh App Review: Use Your Smartphone to Double Dip With Cash-Back Rewards appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Show Me the Benefits: How to Compare Job Offers Beyond the Paycheck

When marketing analyst Kirstin Stone received a job offer this year, she initially turned it down, even though it included a 20% pay raise.

“Then about two months later, I decided that I had made the wrong decision,” Stone says with a laugh. “I wound up calling them back and pursuing the option again.”

This time, she looked at more than the salary.

“That 20% wasn’t enough to pull me over the first time,” Stone says. “A lot was decided in large part due to benefits.”

In a hot job market, where companies are having to do more to woo employees, benefits are becoming as valuable as a paycheck. So says Alison Norris, an advice strategist and certified financial planner for SoFi.

“Compensation encompasses so much more than just salary,” Norris says. “Choosing a position [because of] your overall compensation will often be far more financially advantageous than focusing on the one that just has the higher base salary.”

Benefits are more than just add-ons and fun perks — they account for 31.8 percent of an employee’s total compensation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But how do you compare the number on a paycheck to benefits like paid dental insurance? Here are seven areas to concentrate on when evaluating job offers.

Determine Your Base Pay

If you’re comparing compensation packages, be sure you’re looking at comparable dollar amounts, Norris advises.

“If you’re having trouble and really want to compare apples to apples, looking at your hourly rate — even if you’re salaried — is often easier,” says Norris, who notes that hiring bonuses should be included when calculating the base pay.

And if you’re comparing a freelance position to a staff one, don’t forget to factor in employer contributions and taxes you’ll owe as an independent contractor, Norris warns.

“If one position is a W2 position and the other is an independent contractor, you should add in the taxes your employer would pay on your behalf, which can be huge,” Norris says. “Employers pay 7.65% of your income in social security and medicare taxes.”

How to Factor in Paid Time Off

One way to assign a dollar value to paid time off is to incorporate it into your hourly rate.

Don’t forget to include paid holidays, volunteer days and sick leave — three weeks of vacation isn’t nearly as generous if you have use up days for Christmas or the flu.

Know Your Pre-Tax Benefits

After determining your base pay, it’s time to start categorizing benefits according to whether they’re taxable.

Norris offers as an example: A trendy new benefit, student loan repayment, may not be worth as much as it seems, since employees are still responsible for the taxes on the student loan payment their employer makes for them.

“One dollar worth of pre-tax benefits — ones that you receive without having to pay income taxes — nets far better than $1 of additional salary raise or a taxable benefit,” Norris says. “Fortunately, there’s a plethora of ones that are tax-free to the employee.

“Some common ones that we see are 401(k) matches, paying of disability insurance premiums, contributions to the health savings accounts and employer discounts.”

How to Calculate Health Insurance

When Stone received a job offer, among the initial benefits that caught her attention was her eligibility for health insurance after 30 days of employment. She decided to dig a little further to determine its actual worth.

“I contacted the HR department and I said, ‘I see that I’ll be eligible for insurance — can you send me the details on what that actually is and what the cost is to me out of each paycheck?’” Stone says. She determined that the cost of her insurance premium per paycheck was lower than her current employer, which meant more take-home pay for her.

Norris agrees that you should ask the recruiting or human resources department for information that goes beyond a company’s sometimes vague offer of health insurance.

“You can also request policy documents if they provide any type of insurance coverage — health insurance, disability insurance, dental insurance,” Norris says. “Normally we find that those policy documents are only provided at the request of the job seeker.“

When comparing two offers, factor in your monthly premium, plus deductibles and co-payments for a clear idea of how much the health insurance will save you — or cost you.

“If they have a high-deductible health insurance, do they also have a health savings account that they contribute into?” Norris suggests asking.

Valuing Professional Development

A benefit that people often overlook, largely because it has no clear-cut monetary value, is a company's commitment to professional development.  

“Sometimes it can be seen as a luxury item, so know how committed the organization is to training and development or tuition reimbursement,” says Anna Bray, executive career coach at Jody Michael Associates. “Is there a training department — that can be an indicator. Or is it like a two-person HR department for 1,000 employees? Or maybe they have a robust partnership with another training organization.”

If a company has a learning stipend or tuition reimbursement program, ask for a specific amount to include in your appraisal of the compensation package.

Determining the Value of Benefits

Companies are getting more creative about the extra benefits they tout to prospective employees, from free onsite childcare to cooking classes to an indoor rainforest.

After you have assigned a monetary value to the benefits package, it’s time to evaluate how much each is worth to you.

“You shouldn’t just take [the company’s] word at face value,” Norris says. “You should determine how will it actually change your life personally and which benefits are helpful for you.”

Subtracting Non-reimbursed Expenses

Although the excitement of a job offer may leave you seeing only the positives, you must also calculate the expenses associated with a job.

“What people often forget are the costs of the position,” says Norris, noting that “if you have to buy a whole wardrobe” or pay for parking, you should subtract that amount from your compensation package.

Although employers may be reluctant to divulge these costs, it’s important to ask about them.

“You really cannot be too over-informed,” Norris says. “We find that employees are very excited when they hear an employer wants them and a little bit reluctant to tip the scale.

“But you’re showing interest by asking questions, and you should really dive deep and then project how that will impact you over time.”

Be Ready to Negotiate

OK, you’ve stacked up a new offer to your current job or compared competing offers. Now what? Don't skip this crucial step: negotiating.

Prospective employers should not be surprised or offended by it. But what components of a compensation package are most negotiable?  

“Salary, paid time off, training and development — those seem pretty wide and varied,” Bray says.

And once you’ve compared all of the tangible benefits, Bray stresses that there are aspects of the job that have no place on your ledger.

“Assuming the jobs are equal and it will provide career advancement, think about the company culture and the mission,” she says.

That’s what sealed the deal for Stone.

“More than anything… the change in the style of management was a big factor,” says Stone, who says she reached out to employees to ask about the company culture. “Knowing that I was going to be able to better balance work and life — that was a big, big deal for me.”

Tiffany Wendeln Connors is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. Her favorite benefit at her job is free bike parking. And the cheese.

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