"I fear it might take another financial crisis before Congress acts, but then it might be too late," The Heritage Foundation's Stephen Moore told CBN News.
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الثلاثاء، 9 أكتوبر 2018
Remote Job Seekers: Don’t Miss This Nationwide Virtual Job Fair on Oct. 11
My Employment Options is hosting a virtual career fair Oct. 11, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST through CareerEco, a virtual-job events company. The fair is geared toward job seekers interested in working from home. Both at-home and on-site positions are available for people with disabilities, as well.
Participating companies include ones we have written about for our Work-From-Home Jobs portal, such as Anthem, Concentrix, Convergys, Enterprise, Sitel, Sykes and TTEC. These employers are looking to fill jobs in accounting, customer service, finance, HR, IT, marketing, PR, sales and more. Positions are available in all 50 states.
While the event is open to all job seekers, those receiving Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are highly encouraged to attend. The host, My Employment Options, is a part of the federal “Ticket to Work” program that helps Social Security recipients find employment. The Penny Hoarder has additional information on finding jobs for people with disabilities here.
What You Need to do Before the Online Career Fair
Here’s what you need to be prepared to attend.
Register an Account
First, you’ll need to create an account on CareerEco’s website. Don’t worry, that part takes only about a minute. Once you’re registered, you’ll have access to the schedule, a list of employers, and a personal profile. Make sure you fill in your profile before you attend the career fair.
Enter your details, including your resume, cover letter, education information and your social media handles (Instagram and LinkedIn). These are all optional, but we recommend uploading at least your resume and a cover letter (and maybe leaving out your Instagram). You may also upload your portfolio if you plan to apply to creative fields.
Write a Cover Letter
Again, this isn’t a requirement. But considering the event is virtual and nationwide, you may run into some stiff competition. A great way to stand out is a well written cover letter. Don’t know where to start? Our guide can help you craft a great one.
To really stand out, we recommend that you come prepared with two letters — one general letter that expresses interest in your preferred field and another one that’s tailored to your favorite employer at the event.
Treat It Like an In-Person Event
When the internet is involved, expect that something will go wrong. So make sure you have plenty of time to fix your Wi-Fi connection. Better yet? Plug in your ethernet cable to your computer to avoid those Wi-Fi woes altogether. Double-check that your web browser is up-to-date. The host recommends using the latest version of Google Chrome to access its portal.
Clothes are also important for both real and virtual events. Be prepared to go on-camera with some of the employers. While it is possible to coast through the full job fair without using your webcam, we think that the people who show their faces will make a better impression.
For additional information on the virtual job fair, visit the event’s info page.
Adam Hardy is an editorial assistant on The Penny Hoarder’s jobs team. He’s done plenty of video interviews. His secret tips? Put a plant in the background and make sure your webcam is positioned at eye-level. Read his full bio here , or say hi on Twitter @hardyjournalism.
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.
source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/2A1aNmR
Holiday Budget Looking a Little Scary. Try These 13 Halloween Side Hustles
Halloween is also the beginning of the winter holiday season. What better time to make some last-minute cash for your holiday shopping?
Don’t worry, it’s not a trick: Here are 13 fun ways to make money on the side this Halloween.
1. Become a Haunted House Spook
Have you ever been through a haunted house or corn maze on Halloween? You know, the ones populated by scary ghouls who sneak up on you and freak you out?
Well, someone’s gotta do the dirty work of scaring visitors.
Most of these jobs pay minimum wage or a little better, but getting paid to dress up and act spooky sounds like a pretty fun part-time job to me.
Plus, look out for jobs that double as fun, unique experiences — like this listing for a haunted house performer in Georgia. Keep your eyes peeled for similar opportunities in your area.
Or, if nothing’s coming up, you could start your own haunted house. While this one is more of a long game, haunted houses and scary theme parks are part of a booming industry. If you’re a Halloween fanatic with the capital, time and desire to run a startup, this might just be the perfect business for you!
2. Give Ghost Tours
When I was in college, I had a pretty sweet part-time job: I drove a horse and carriage around the streets of St. Augustine, Florida, giving historical tours.
Around Halloween, our traffic increased a lot. St. Augustine is the oldest town in America, and with such a long and storied history, it’s considered one of the most haunted as well.
Riders were willing to shell out top dollar for ghost-themed tours, and not just on the carriages. There’s a whole ghost tourism market in St. Augustine and other “haunted” American cities, like Savannah, Georgia, and St. Petersburg, Florida.
Check to see if your local ghost tour outlets are hiring for increased volume around Halloween — or even start your own tour if you know lots of local lore!
3. Make and Sell Costumes
Looking for something a little tamer? Something you could do at home?
If you’re a whiz with a sewing machine, try making and selling Halloween costumes. If you’re thorough, your wares can fetch quite the price tag online or in local markets.
Don’t forget pet costumes — fur-parents are notorious for their willingness to spend money on their pets!
4. Sell Other Cute Halloween Edibles or Crafts
Do you have a knack for creating adorable crafts? You could sell your Halloween crafts and decorations online to time-pressed party hosts or Halloween fanatics.
Want another artsy way to earn that’s a little more interactive?
5. Become a Halloween Makeup Artist
If you’re skilled in the arts of makeup or face painting, Halloween is a great time to put your craft to work. You could get a job painting up haunted-house zombies or offer your services to your local community.
6. Be a Halloween Party Planner
If you’re great at event planning, offer to create awesome Halloween gatherings, from arranging food and decorations to planning activities and guest lists.
It’s a fun way to test the waters of this potential freelance business — or to explore a fun niche if you’ve already started organizing other types of events.
7. DJ a Halloween party
If you can spin a record, drop a beat and keep a party going, consider a gig as a Halloween DJ. Just make sure you’re doing more than playing “Thriller” on repeat.
8. Run a Concession Stand
For partygoers stuck in high-Halloween traffic areas or famous Halloween towns like Athens, Ohio, a bottle of water could be a godsend — and worth the $3 cost. If you stock up at a warehouse club beforehand, you could earn a serious profit.
Just make sure you check with the local powers-that-be to see whether you need any permits, which vary state to state. You may need to look into food-handling requirements and check with parent event officials as well.
9. Work at a Pop-Up Shop or Party Store
Party outlets often hire temporary seasonal employees to help ease the burden of the extra Halloween volume.
Halloween pop-up shops are a surprisingly huge industry — so you’re bound to have one or two nearby.
10. Become a Professional Pumpkin Carver
Are you truly awesome at carving pumpkins? Does your jack-o’-lantern easily outshine the rest of the grimacing gourds on the block? You might be able to sell your creations for big bucks!
This company sells their pumpkins for between $150 and $800. When pumpkins aren’t in season, they switch to watermelon and squash, so if you’re lucky, this could turn into a year-round gig.
11. Grow a Pumpkin Patch
If you live in the country, put your land to work and grow some pumpkins! According to a report from the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend about $9 billion on Halloween this year, with an estimated $575 million just on pumpkins alone.
Why not rake in some of that profit? Plus, you’ll have plenty of pumpkin to nosh on for yourself.
12. Build a Corn Maze
Corn mazes are a huge source of autumn fun. This one in California charges $15 per ticket — not bad.
Add in hay rides or concessions, and you’ve started a small business. If you don’t have a cornfield of your own, see if any local farmers are interested in a partnership.
13. Be a Trick-or-Treating Chaperone or Babysitter
Bafflingly, Halloween is not (yet!) a nationally recognized holiday, so some parents will get stuck working.
If you love kids and want an excuse to go trick-or-treating as an adult, what better way than to offer babysitting and chaperoning services on Halloween? It’s a pretty sweet gig — you might make as much as $18 per hour.
See Also >> How to Make Money Online (Anytime!)
Jamie Cattanach is a writer, traveler and crossword puzzle enthusiast. Her work has been featured at Fodor's, SELF, The Establishment, Roads & Kingdoms and elsewhere.
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.
source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/2CwjR5y
The Financial Noise
Every once in a while, I’ll flip on CNBC or Fox Business Network and just see what’s on there in terms of financial news. I used to do this much more often, but these days I rarely turn them on.
Why? When I do turn them on, I see and hear an awful lot of noise.
It’s often hard to instantly tell what’s a commercial and what’s actual content. The actual content itself often consists of self-promoting stock pickers. Much of the content is geared toward a very singular investment strategy of picking individual stocks. Everything is either extremely good or extremely bad – there is no “it’s doing okay” to be found.
In short, for someone like myself who is an individual person trying to keep my lifestyle costs low and invest with a sensible and clear strategy, there’s almost nothing actionable or nothing even really worthwhile to think about on those channels.
It’s just… noise.
Virtually my entire investment strategy comes from having read a few focused books on the topic, with The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing probably being chief among them. Everything else regarding investing, for my purposes, is basically noise. It’s either truly junk information that’s not helpful to anyone (like ads or people promoting their pet stock or a pump and dump scheme or something) or information that’s irrelevant to me personally because I’m not a professional or institutional investor.
My personal finance philosophy was built out of a handful of books, chief among them Your Money or Your Life, and some reflection on my own life. Virtually everything else that I’ve read involving general personal finance, for my purposes, has been basically noise or a repetition of those core ideas. It’s either truly junk information that’s not helpful to anyone (like crazy expensive programs that might actually work or stuff like “how to become a millionaire by 30” that only works if you have a trust fund or something) or information that’s irrelevant to me personally because it’s not relevant to my life or my life’s goals.
What about things I might be interested in buying or spending my money on? The noise is loud. Every interest I might have is jammed full of products that I’m almost entirely not interested in and jammed full of people trying to make those products sound like something that I would be interested in. Virtually all of it is just noise. I walk into a bookstore and the whole place is set up to entice me to be interested in books I wasn’t aware of at all or wasn’t interested in when I walked in the door, for example. The grocery store props enticing goods at eye level everywhere, with end caps and various displays begging to grab your attention for just long enough for you to grab that item and toss it in your cart.
The reality is that the noise is everywhere. We are being constantly inundated with ideas and information that really aren’t helpful to us in terms of how we live our lives or what we want to do with our lives.
A lot of that noise is generated for the sole purpose of trying to separate us from our money. Yes, advertisements and marketing are the big culprits here, but there’s also a lot of well-meaning information that finds its way into our life that really isn’t relevant to us but is enticing nonetheless. Think of things like Facebook updates from your friends on a beautiful vacation or the family down the block with the brand new car.
Regardless of the source, however, all of that noise does nothing but distract us from the life we want to lead. It eats up our time and our focus and convinces us to use our money in ways that aren’t always perfectly in line with what we want for our lives.
Over the last year or two, I have consciously been trying to filter out as much noise as possible from my life for a lot of reasons, many of them financially related.
I want my financial choices – not just how I invest, but how I use virtually every dollar – to be meaningful and to be something I’m still happy with a month from now or a year from now.
I want my everyday decisions to be deeply meaningful and be something I’m still happy with a month from now or a year from now.
I want the ways I use my time to be meaningful and be something I’m happy with a month from now and a year from now.
Furthermore, I want to get rid of things in my life that are causing me to sap away that money or to make decisions that aren’t really meaningful or eat away at my focus or cause me to be distracted in the moment. Almost all of those things have some financial benefit, but they have a multitude of personal benefits too.
In short, I want to filter out the noise in my life and leave more of the signal. I want to get rid of the static so that I can hear the clear music.
I want to be less distracted in terms of my money use.
I want to be less distracted in terms of my time use.
I want to be less distracted in terms of my focus use.
I want to be less distracted in terms of my energy use.
And I believe all of these tie together pretty tightly.
Figuring out this challenge has been a big part of my focus for the last few months, and here are some of the conclusions I’ve come to and some of the things that really help.
Spend some time figuring out what you want out of life, so that you have some guiding principles for how to spend your time, money, energy, and focus each day. What do you want to do with your life? What things are actually important to you, and which things aren’t? Modern life begs us to be distracted and tries to convince us that a lot of things are important to us when they’re really not. Having a firm grounding on what’s really important to us matters deeply.
How to get started Start by asking yourself what kind of life you want to have five years from now. What elements of that vision of your life pop up first? Free time? A close relationship with certain people? A deep investment in certain hobbies? Consider the first five elements that pop up in that picture and drop the rest. They’re not important. Focus your energy on hitting a home run with those five things that you first visualize. What can you do to take those things from where you’re at now to where you want to be with them?
Schedule uninterrupted blocks of time for things that are genuinely important to you. Once you’ve figured out some of the things that are genuinely important to you, block off walls of time to make those things happen. Literally add them to your calendar and identify them as non-interruptible. Treat them as the “rocks” in your schedule and let other things fill the space in your life like “sand” around them. If you “don’t have the time,” make the time, because if you don’t give time to those genuinely important things, they will never happen. Plus, having that devoted time means that you’ll focus on the task at hand rather than being distracted by the noise in your life.
How to get started Simply block off time as needed for each of the important things you identified earlier. If you want to learn something, block off time each day or at least each week for learning. If you want to make something, block off time to make it. Add it to your calendar and then figure out how to make do with the time that’s left. If you have to leave some dishes in the sink, that’s fine. If you find yourself watching less television or checking social media less, that’s definitely fine.
When you make a choice, consider your “future self.” Your “future self” should be one of your main considerations in every decision that you make. Look at every choice through the lens of what you would think of that decision five years from now when looking back on it. What would your future self think about you eating a bunch of junk food while sitting at home alone? What would your future self think about you staring mindlessly at a Friends rerun while half-awake instead of going to bed? What would your future self think of you spending money on a new piece of clothing or a new hobby item when your closet is already overstuffed? Most of the marketing messages that come along with products today are aimed directly at pleasing your present self – your future self sees right through them.
How to get started Whenever you think about spending money, make an effort to consider yourself five years down the road. Would that future self think that this purchase was sensible? Get in the routine of using that idea of your future self as a filter for lots of decisions, starting with every time you spend money.
If you’re tired, go to sleep. Don’t sit in a chair half-awake staring at your phone or at the television or at a computer screen. During those times, you’re incredibly susceptible to noise because of your tiredness level; not only that, you’re cutting into getting a full night of sleep, which weakens your ability to focus and concentrate and feel energetic the next day. Sitting in a half-awake slump is just a losing proposition all around. Go lay down in bed with the lights off and your cell phone in “do not disturb” mode and get some actual rest.
How to get started If you feel yourself slowing down in the evening, go to bed. Don’t measure it by the clock or by some sense of how late you should stay up. Don’t talk yourself into staying up for some unplanned entertainment. Go to bed. Get a good night of rest. You’re getting very little value out of anything you do while making yourself stay up.
Cut down drastically on social media time. In the last few months, I’ve cut back drastically on my social media time. I rarely look at it any more aside from checking messages from Simple Dollar readers or communicating directly with friends about upcoming face-to-face events. Why? Virtually everything on social media is noise. It’s not relevant with what I want out of life and it’s not a reliable source of information in any way. It’s just noise that I don’t need.
How to get started Delete your social media apps from your phone. Hang onto direct messaging apps like Facebook Messenger if you need them to contact people; aside from that, drop all of it.
Put your phone in “Do Not Disturb” mode by DEFAULT – or better yet, turn it off a lot. Unless you have an active purpose for your phone, turn it off or put it in “do not disturb” mode. The messages you get can wait an hour or two – they don’t have to interrupt what you’re doing to be dealt with immediately. Very, very few things in life are that urgent, and they typically don’t come in via a smartphone notification. If you’re wanting to focus on something – a task, a conversation with a friend, a book, whatever – just turn your phone completely off and consider putting it in another room.
How to get started Give it a try for the next few hours. Turn your phone completely off and get some stuff done. If you find yourself reflexively grabbing for it, you’ll notice it’s off. Putting the phone in the other room makes it much harder to reflexively grab for it. You’ll also start noticing how often you grab for it without thinking.
Don’t consume any kind of media without intention. Don’t sit down and start watching television or looking at social media or browsing websites without a specific purpose in mind for doing so. If you’re doing it to contact someone, contact that person and move on. If you’re doing it to obtain a particular piece of information, obtain that piece of information and move on. Don’t sit there and let computer algorithms or television networks fill your mind with noise.
How to get started If you find yourself watching television or visiting social media or reading a website without intention, stop. Turn off the device and go do something else. Train yourself to stop using such noise generators as a reflex in your life.
If you’re bored, do something rather than consume something. People often try to plug a sense of boredom by turning on some sort of entertainment or media to take away that sense of boredom. For many, it’s almost a reflex – they turn on the television or grab a phone the instant boredom begins to tickle them. Rather than turning on something unplanned to watch or look at or listen to, get up and do something. Do a household chore that needs doing or spend some time doing something intentional that’s in line with your long term goals. Cut out the noise and replace it with purpose.
How to get started If you notice yourself getting bored, intentionally choose a response that doesn’t involve media or entertainment. If you’re actually more tired than bored, go take a short power nap.
Practice your ability to focus on the moment. The ability to focus on the moment and really dig into the task at hand is a great way to cut the noise out of your life, but focus is a skill that many of us don’t actively work on and have likely atrophied over the years in this era of easy distraction. It’s so easy to have our focus broken and to have a distraction take over, so giving our focus ability a bit of “exercise” is a great way to nudge the balance in the other direction.
How to get started The easiest way to do this is to exercise your focus just like you’d exercise your body. Take a moment, close your eyes, and just focus on your breathing. Breathe in, breathe out. It’s like doing a bicep curl, except for your mind’s ability to focus. Do it for a minute or two.
Make a long term financial plan and stick to it Invest according to your personal goals and not what the talking heads are saying on CNBC or on websites where they have to come up with endless content about the economy and about investing. Figure out your target date and a sensible plan for investing for that target date, initiate that plan, and leave it alone. There’s really no need to read the financial news at all if you’ve done this – it’s all just noise at that point.
How to get started Figure out what your main financial goals are – retirement, etc. – and what you need to do to get there. Set up that financial plan through automatic transactions and just sit back and let it happen.
If something you’ve read or heard has just nudged you toward spending money, ask yourself whether that source really has a useful role in your life. For example, let’s say you read an article on a news website and afterwards you’re feeling strongly urged to go buy a new product that you hadn’t considered buying before. Obviously, that’s not a great impulse. Rather than just talking yourself out of that impulse, step back even further and ask yourself whether that source of information is a good presence in your life. Is that website or television program really giving you any positive value along with those messages to buy, buy, buy? If you can’t grasp a strong benefit, then cut that website or television program or magazine or whatever out of your life.
How to get started When you have an impulse to spend money, consider where that impulse came from. Where did you learn about that thing you’re desiring? Does the source of that information have a meaningful place in your life, considering it’s nudging you to spend money on stuff you don’t need?
Do more things with other people, face to face, without technology and without spending money. What can you do with other people that involves actual face to face interaction and doesn’t involve spending money? The more you can fit that into your schedule, the easier it is to avoid a lot of the noise. Face to face interactions are about as meaningful as you can get.
How to get started Go to community events. Check out Meetup. Invite your friends over. Invite your friends to toss a Frisbee around at the park. Think of something to do face to face with your friends and family and then make it happen rather than sitting at home.
Automate as much of your finances as possible. This is the final piece, and perhaps the most important one. Make your core financial decisions with as little noise and interference as possible, after really studying and learning about personal finance. Set up a financial plan and then automate it as much as you possibly can so that you don’t have to make conscious decisions about it later. This also makes it more resistant to snap decisions you’ve made due to the noise in your life.
How to get started Think about your financial goals and how you can approach them using automatic transfers. For example, you can save for retirement by automatically contributing to your 401(k) or to a Roth IRA. You can do a form of budgeting by transferring money automatically from your checking to your savings account each week, or by having your check deposited into one account and then having money transferred automatically from that account to your primary checking. This gives you fewer opportunities to disrupt your finances as the result of impulsive decisions you’re nudged into by the noise.
Choose from this menu of tools, apply the ones that make the most sense for you, and cut some of the noise out of your life so that you can connect with the real big picture of what you want out of life.
Good luck!
The post The Financial Noise appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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Want to Save Money on Car Insurance? Fix Your Credit
Your credit score can affect your ability to get a loan or a mortgage, but it also determines how much you’ll pay for insurance.
Depending on where they live, drivers with poor credit can pay double to even triple the auto insurance premium of a driver with good credit, according to a study by InsuranceQuotes.com.
If you have fair credit, the report notes that you’ll pay an average of 28 percent more for car insurance than a driver with excellent credit. It gets worse for drivers with poor credit, who pay double (103 percent) the premiums of drivers with good credit.
“Many consumers are unaware that their credit history is being used to not only determine whether they will be approved for a new credit card or mortgage, but also to decide how much they pay for insurance,” says Nick DiUlio, an analyst at insuranceQuotes.com. “With 97 percent of U.S. insurance companies using credit-based insurance scores to determine auto premiums—apart from California, Massachusetts, and Hawaii, where the practice is not allowed—it’s crucial to be educated on how scoring works and how to improve your score.”
It isn’t just your auto insurance at risk, either. Last year, a study by InsuranceQuotes and Quadrant Information Services found that credit scores have a significant impact on your homeowners and renters insurance premiums.
If you have a fair credit score, you’ll pay 36 percent more for home insurance than someone with excellent credit. That’s up from 32 percent in 2015 and 29 percent in 2014. Worse, if you have a poor credit score, your premium more than doubles. The 114 percent increase is up from 100 percent in 2015 and 91 percent in 2014.
- Related: What’s a Good Credit Score?
So how is any of this possible? Blame the credit-based insurance score (CBIS), which is completely separate from your credit score and helps insurers determine how likely you are to file a claim. Ranging from 100 to 999, the CBIS is used exclusively by insurance companies and is derived from a variety of factors in your consumer credit report. Actuaries claim that the higher your CBIS, the less likely you are to file a claim. Therefore, the higher your CBIS, the lower your car insurance rate.
“Credit-based insurance scores are created using approximately 20 to 30 different aspects of financial data,” DiUlio says, “which means that everything from late payments to outstanding debt is taken into consideration.”
So exactly what credit factors determine how likely you are to file a claim? Well, the insurance companies pull data from credit bureaus Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and focus on outstanding debt, length of credit history, late payments, collections, bankruptcies, and new applications for credit.
The belief is that bad credit decisions will lead to bad life decisions that insurers will have to pay for. Lamont Boyd, insurance underwriting expert at FICO, says about 95 percent of U.S. home insurers use credit-based insurance scores in states where it’s allowed. California, Maryland, and Massachusetts ban the use of credit in setting home insurance rates.
“Credit-based insurance scores are used by almost every insurance company in the nation because it’s a very good segmentation tool,” Boyd told InsuranceQuotes. “It’s such a powerful tool because it is very, very predictive of future losses. In other words, lower scoring individuals typically have more insurance losses than those in the higher ranges, which means they are more expensive to insure.”
Even those being insured don’t disagree with this approach. According to a survey by Capital One from last year, 66 percent of consumers believe that good credit should afford a person special treatment. Meanwhile, more than half (55 percent) think that bad credit devalues someone’s social status.
As a result, when a driver’s credit score slides from excellent to fair, their auto insurance rates nearly double in Michigan (an 89.6 percent increase) and Utah (87.3%). When that score goes from excellent to poor, however, premiums triple in Alabama (193 percent), Arizona (197 percent), Nevada (209 percent), Utah (223 percent), and Michigan (229 percent).
- Related: Road Outrage: Low-Income Drivers Are Charged More for Car Insurance, Even With a Clean Record
Meanwhile, homeowners and renters with fair credit are going to pay a lot more for insurance in Arizona (75 percent increase), Oregon (67 percent), Montana (67 percent), D.C. (65 percent) and Oklahoma (59 percent) than they would if they had excellent credit. If your credit for some reason drops from excellent to poor, you’re more than tripling your premiums in Oregon (234.9 percent), Nevada (235.3 percent), Oklahoma (248 percent), Arizona (269 percent) and South Dakota (288 percent).
Ethically, basing home and auto insurance rates off of factors that have nothing to do with maintaining a home or driving a car is shaky. Boyd says the average American will never see their credit-based insurance score, while other critics note that there is no standard for its use.
“[T]here is a very dramatic economic downside for people who have credit that’s anything less than excellent, and that seems inherently unfair,” Amy Bach, executive director of the San Francisco-based nonprofit United Policyholders, a consumer advocacy organization, told InsuranceQuotes. “They keep telling us this data is predictive, but they don’t know why. And as long as they keep showing that it’s predictive they win and consumers lose.”
That said, policyholders have options if they want to game the system. The best strategy is simply to establish good credit. About 40 percent of your CBIS boils down to paying bills on time. Another 30 percent is based on how much credit card and loan debt you have vs. how much you’re allowed to borrow (your credit utilization ratio).
“For those looking to save money on insurance — not to mention boost their consumer credit —there are a number of best practices to keep in mind,” DiUlio says. “This includes staying up-to-date on paying all credit obligations, not opening new accounts unless absolutely necessary, and keeping credit card balances as low as possible — no more than 30 percent of the maximum borrowing limit.”
Basically, you can use the same strategy to lower your insurance rates as you would to improve your credit score or lower your credit card interest. Both FICO and VantageScore credit scores value on-time payments and low balances above all else — much like the CBIS. The combination of a spotless payment history (35 percent of a FICO score) and the amount of debt a cardholder carries in relation to their credit limit — or their credit utilization (30 percent) — account for nearly two-thirds of a person’s overall credit score. Your mix of credit accounts (10 percent of your score) also matters.
This all affects your ability to lease a car, rent an apartment, obtain a mortgage, qualify for the best rewards credit cards, or do just about anything else that requires sterling credit — including obtaining low car, homeowners, and renters insurance rates.
- Related: Five Perks of Having Good Credit
After speaking with multiple advisors about this through the years for various financial publications, I’ve cobbled together a four-point plan for raising your credit score — which can help lower your insurance premiums, too:
1. Fix the errors: Just get a free copy of your credit report directly from the three credit reporting agencies themselves. Review the status of your account, your credit limits and your personal information, and dispute any errors immediately.
2. Beg forgiveness: A longtime account holder or a frequent customer with late payment on their record may be able to talk creditors into working out a repayment plan and, afterward, removing the offending mark from record.
3. Pay down balances (and pay off bad accounts first): Almost a third of your credit score is based on your utilization ratio, or how much of your available credit limit you’ve used; anything more than 30% (e.g, $3,000 in balances against a $10,000 overall credit limit) is generally considered too high. But unlike making years of consistent, on-time payments, this is a part of your credit score you can improve almost immediately.
When paying off debt to boost your credit, “revolving” accounts like credit cards should take priority, especially those with high interest rates. Pay them down as much as possible to whittle away at interest, and transfer balances to cards with lower rates (or zero-percent introductory offers) when possible.
4. Increase your credit: Consider this a last resort, as it’s more of a way to game your credit ratio than anything. But if you’re using up, say, $2,500 of your $5,000 available credit, and can somehow open an account with another $5,000 in available credit, you’ll instantly trim your credit utilization rate from 50 percent to a more desirable 25 percent. The key, however, is not to use any of that newfound credit until you’ve paid off the old debt.
Cut up your credit cards, tuck them away, but keep them open — and don’t go applying for a whole bunch of new cards at once.
More by Jason Notte:
- Don’t Get Blindsided by These Retirement Risks
- What You Don’t Know About Insurance Is Costing You
- What to Know When Adding a Teen Driver to Your Car Insurance Policy
The post Want to Save Money on Car Insurance? Fix Your Credit appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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We Found a Surprisingly Fun Way to Build Your Savings (and It’s Free!)
But what if the process was sort of, kind of fun?
A savings app called Long Game Savings turns saving money into a game. Plus, you’ll earn interest on your balance — even if you don’t have the best luck playing games.
Long Game: A Fun Way to Finally Save Money
Long Game is free to download, and when you sign up, you’ll gain access to a free FDIC-insured, interest-earning savings account.
Link your bank account, and make your first deposit of at least $5. Then, set up your auto-savings schedule. This could be as little as $5 once a month — whatever you’re comfortable doing.
When I tried Long Game, I set up my account to auto-deposit $5 into my account every other week.
The amount you’ve saved translates into coins. You can use these coins to play mini-games, which include lucky slots, spin-to-win wheels or scratch-offs.
If you run out of coins, you can elect to slide more money into your Long Game Savings account. So it feels kind of like gambling but without the risk because you’re not funneling money to a casino — you’re simply funding your savings account.
To be honest, these games are a bit addicting, and on more than one occasion I found myself depositing more money into my savings just to play more games.
The lucky slots were my favorite. I’d play while watching “The Real Housewives” or during a five-minute brain break at work. It’s mindless, but when I’d bank 25 cents or extra coins here and there, the endorphins would flow.
You’ll also earn 0.1% interest on your account balance. No, that isn’t a ton (think: 1 cent for every dollar saved), but it’s probably more than sitting in a traditional checking account. Plus, you have plenty of chances to win up to $1 million in cash through mini-games, which acts as a nice bonus. Free money, baby!
Like I said, Long Game Savings is a bit addicting, but you won’t feel bad spending time playing the mini games. That’s because you’re also saving money — to take a vacation, start an emergency fund or pay off some debt.
Finally! Playing on your phone proves productive!
Carson Kohler (carson@thepennyhoarder.com) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s tried something like 100 million savings apps, but she’d say Long Game is one of the most entertaining.
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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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