How to Create a Website With WordPress

Creating a website used to be a massive project.

And expensive too.

Everything had to be built by hand and businesses needed to work with an online marketing agency that would charge them tens of thousands of dollars to build the site. If you wanted a professional-looking site, that was your only option.

Things have gotten a lot cheaper over the years.

Now it’s possible to get a polished site for less than $100. About $10 to buy the domain, $30–60 for a good template, and $5–10/month to host it. It’ll look so good that people won’t even realize that you built it yourself. It’ll look like some high-flying marketing agency built it for you.

Not only has it gotten cheaper, it’s also gotten a lot easier.

There’s a number of approaches you can take to creating a website.

Our General Take On Building a Website

Don’t get confused by all of the different options for creating a website. For a more in-depth look at how we think about this, check out our preliminary guide on how to create a website.

WordPress is King

In most cases, we highly recommend to build your website with WordPress. It’s an open source platform that allows you to run your website with very little technical expertise.

Some of the biggest websites on the Internet are built on WordPress. TechCrunch, The New Yorker, Variety and MTV News, just to name a few.

It’s also the most popular blogging platform, so there are hundreds of thousands of smaller websites that use WordPress.

WordPress is used by 33.4% of all the websites, and has a content management system market share of 60.3%.

Much of our content is centered around WordPress because we use it for all of our websites outside of Ecommerce.

Here’s the guide on how to create your website on WordPress.

Shopify for Ecommerce

For Ecommerce, we like Shopify — which is an Ecommerce website builder that allows you to get an online store up and running quickly.

The reality is that creating and running an online store can be a huge pain. Shopify takes that pain away. That’s probably why they are growing so quickly, and so many great online stores are popping up on the platform.

Here’s the guide on how to create your website on Shopify.

The Dozens of Other Options

If you’re reading this right now, then you most definitely fall into the category of someone that should be using WordPress or Shopify.

In rare cases, it might make sense to create a website using Squarespace or a similar website builder.

In other (very) rare cases, it might make sense to have a custom built website.

A Step-by-step Guide to Creating a Website With WordPress

I’ve broken down the 9 simple steps to create your website from scratch. You’ll easily be able to run through these steps over the next 120 minutes.

Step 1: Pick a name and find a domain for your website

These are not two separate steps, unfortunately.

I really wish I could sit down, pick any name that I want for my business, and be able to create the site that I want around that name. Now that the internet is a couple of decades old, we all have to face the reality that most of the good domains have been taken.

Here’s how a naming session always seems to go for me:

1. In a moment of inspiration, we think of an amazing name.
2. We hold on to this name for months, maybe even years.
3. It’s time to start the business, so we go to purchase the domain.
4. The domain is taken.
5. We try a dozen small variations of our original idea, all taken.
6. No biggie, we thought of one brilliant name, we’ll think of another one.
7. Backup idea #2 = taken.
8. Backup idea #3 = taken.
9. Backup idea #4 = taken.
10. Despair sets in.
11. We start considering names that we don’t actually like, hoping that anything is available.
12. We come up with 2 or 3 options that we don’t like at all.
13. Then we spend a week trying to come up with a name that’s both available and a name that we can live with.
14. Finally, we find one.

Websites have also become so embedded in our day-to-day lives that it’s better to change the name of the business to match an available domain than it is to pick a poor quality domain. Through this process, I almost always end up with a completely different name than I originally intended.

This is why I consider the “naming my business” and “buying the domain” steps for creating a business to be the same step. I try to only lock myself into a name once I have the domain.

We put together an in-depth guide on buying domains here.

The good news is that the rest of these steps are a breeze once you have your domain purchased. It’s the first and hardest step to create your website.

Step 2: Register your domain name

Real quick, let’s sort out the difference between a domain registrar and a web host.

A domain registrar is a company that specializes in buying (registering) domains.

A web host, on the other hand, specializes in running servers that host websites.

Every web host will desperately try to get you to also registrar a domain through them. The reason is that it’s a great upsell for them. They’ve spent most of their resources building out a hosting service, then they offer domain registration as a convenience, increase the price a bit, and collect a nice chunk of extra profit from you.

My philosophy is to buy things from businesses that specialize in that exact thing. Prices will be better and so will quality. That’s why I also use a domain registrar for buying domains and a web host for hosting. I never mix up the two.

The best domain registrar is Domain.com. That’s where I have all of my domain names.

We put together a detailed review of domain registrars here.

Step 3: Decide what kind of site you are creating

Most guides on creating a website will push you into using WordPress. It’s the most popular and flexible website builder. And that’s usually a good recommendation.

But there are a few situations where I recommend different options.

Simple Portfolio or “Business Card” Sites

Many businesses need a simple website that tells people a few things:

• Who the business is for
• What the business does
• Sometimes a portfolio that shows off some work
• Contact info

This kind of site gives the basic info for the business, nothing more. If this is what you need, Squarespace is your best option for creating your website. It’s incredibly simple to use and will give you a professional site at a very low price. It’s perfect for small businesses.

Squarespace will try to convince you that they can handle everything. That’s not true.

They’ve created the simplest and easiest website builder out there. Truly, it’s a joy to use.

However, they completely lack all the advanced features that an online business needs. The ecommerce functionality is extremely limited, and I don’t know any serious online marketer that uses Squarespace for a content site. If your business an online business, Squarespace isn’t a legitimate option. You’ll hit the limits of its features too fast.

If you know that you want an ecommerce store from the beginning, start on Shopify and skip Squarespace. And if you know you want a blog or are planning on doing lots of content, start on WordPress. The majority of this guide is around building a wordpress website.

Squarespace makes the most sense when you just need a clean, professional-looking site that gives some basic info on your business. It’s perfect for small businesses, freelancers, and artists.

Here’s another way to think about it: If you’re building a business that doesn’t live and die on its website, it just needs a website in case anyone looks for it, like a digital business card, then go with Squarespace. But if you’re website is your business, use one of the more tailored platforms.

Ecommerce Sites

If you’re planning on building an ecommerce store for your site, don’t use WordPress. We have an entire post here on when to use WordPress for ecommerce and when not to. The short story: it rarely makes sense to use WordPress for ecommerce.

The best option, by far, is Shopify. There used to be more competition in the ecommerce tool space but Shopify got too far ahead. Now they’re really the only option and they have an incredible reputation. You won’t regret using them for an ecommerce site.

If you’re going this route, we have a 9-step guide on how to create an ecommerce website. We also have a guide on how to start a store that drives real sales. Both of those guides will get you pointed in the right direction.

Blog Sites

If you want to create a blog with a bunch of content, you need to use WordPress. We have a detailed guide on starting blogs here. Most websites are really just blogs. Some of the biggest, and most well known websites on the Internet are blogs.

WordPress powers over 30% of the entire internet. So it’s the only real option for starting a blog these days.

What about Joomla or Drupal? Or Typepad?

WordPress left all those other platforms in the dust about a decade ago. They’re not even legitimate options at this point. Pick WordPress — there isn’t a single situation where you’ll regret it.

When I originally started with this online thing, Drupal sites were still pretty common. I partnered up with an engineer friend of mine and we did a lot of freelance work migrating sites from Drupal to WordPress. Even back then, WordPress was a clear winner.

Now when I come across a site on any of these other tools, it’s kind of exciting. It’s like finding an ancient artifact. “This still exists!? How fascinating!”

Don’t use any of these other tools, stick to WordPress.

Everything Else

If you’re not sure or have another vision for your site outside the categories above, use WordPress. It’s the most flexible platform out there. It will do ecommerce, it’ll do simple portfolios, it’ll do massive content sites, it’ll do Fortune 500 marketing sites, it’ll do it all.

You might have to customize it more than other platforms in some situations but you can make WordPress do whatever you want it to. And just about anyone in online marketing knows their way around WordPress so you’ll be able to find plenty of people to help you when the time comes.

Whether you want to build your site by hand or you have an online marketing agency to do it for you, you should still build on top of WordPress. It’ll shortcut a lot of the programming work and give you the ability to edit basic items on your site without having to edit any code. I’ve managed marketing sites of venture-backed tech startups that employed dozens of engineers — we still had our marketing site built on top of WordPress. It’s the standard choice.

Step 4: Get a host for your website

For the rest of this guide, I’m going to assume that you’ve picked WordPress to create your site. If you want an ecommerce site, skip the rest of this guide and follow our guide on creating an ecommerce site.

WordPress is the tool that you’ll use to build your website. But you also need a host that will store your site and make it available to anyone who visits.

The best place to go for most people is Siteground.

We have an entire guide here that goes through all the best web hosts.

Hosting plans usually start around $5/month.

Step 5: Install WordPress

Just about every website host has a 1-click install of WordPress. Siteground, the hosting provider I recommend the most has this feature. It’s usually under a section called Tools, Website, Software, or Content Management Systems (CMS). It’ll look something like this:

If you have trouble finding it, contact support at your host and they’ll be able to walk you through it.

Step 6: Point your domain to your host

Let’s do a quick recap.

• You bought your domain using a domain registrar.
• You signed up for a hosting plan.
• You installed WordPress on your host.

Now you’re going to connect all that stuff together by pointing your domain to your host. Then when people go to your domain, they’ll end up on your website.

There are a few technical settings you need to apply. This involves configuring a few nameserver settings on your domain registrar for your domain. Your host will give you the correct settings; you’re looking for their nameserver settings.

If you get stuck, contact your host and they’ll give you all the info you need.

Once you have the nameserver info from your host, go into your domain registrar and configure those settings for the domain that you want to point at your site. Once you’re done, it’ll look something like this:

 

Step 7: Install a WordPress theme

Think of WordPress as the guts of your site, it’s all the pumping that makes your site work.

WordPress uses themes to determine how your website looks. This makes it really easy to change how your site looks without having to rebuild your site from scratch. Swap out your old theme for a new one and ta-da! Your design will look completely different.

These days, I purchase all my themes from StudioPress.

Heads up, WP Engine bought StudioPress and now includes all the StudioPress themes in its hosting plans. WP Engine is more expensive but it’s perfect for serious bloggers. It’s a great way to save money on your theme if you are planning on building a large site to begin with. WP Engine is another one of our recommended hosts if you’re looking for the best. The downside is that WP Engine tends to be more expensive than other hosts. It’s probably overkill if you are just starting out, or creating your first website.

Back to themes, are there other options?

You betcha. ThemeForest has a marketplace of WordPress themes. There are literally tens of thousands of themes to pick from. They’re usually in the $30–60 price range. When looking for theme, I rank them by the most popular or the highest rating. Then I pick one I personally like.

After you’ve purchased a theme, go to the WordPress Theme settings and upload your theme. The Theme settings are under Appearance in the WordPress sidebar menu. You’ll have to click through “Add new” and “Upload Theme” in order to see this option to upload:

Go ahead and upload the .zip file you received when you purchased your theme.

After it’s uploaded, you’ll also have to click “activate” on the theme in WordPress to make it go live.

Step 8: Add content to your website

Now the fun part — it’s time to create the individual pages of your site.

You’ll do this within WordPress.

WordPress has two types of content: pages and posts.

Think of posts as blog posts that are published under a “blog” section of a site. If you’re not planning on having a blog, then you can skip posts entirely.

Pages are the more permanent pages on your website. Like your About or Contact Us pages. When you’re first creating your website, you want to get a batch of pages live so your site feels real.

Every website has a few standard pages you should create:

• Homepage – Your WordPress theme usually has settings for this page.
• Contact Page – Create a new page and install a WordPress form plugin so you can add a form to the page.
• About page – Tell your story and why you’ve started your business.
• Product or services pages – For the main services or products that you’re offering, it’s a good idea to create a dedicated page for each.
• Blog – If you’re building a blog, make sure all your posts get listed here.

This list will get you started. You can always add more later.

Step 9: Continue evolving your website

At this point, you have a fully functioning site that looks great.

I’m not going to lie, there’s a lot of extra configuration you can do to your site: you can add WordPress plugins that upgrade your site, build out a blog, add an email list, grow traffic, the list is endless.

You don’t have to do any of this extra stuff — it’s all optional. It depends on your priorities and goals.

A website is an ever evolving thing. The way it looks after you first create it, won’t be how it looks a couple months later. At least that is the case if you are actively working and growing your website.

When you’re ready, these guides will walk you through the extra stuff that’s worth considering:

• Want to improve SEO? Check out The Best SEO Plugins for WordPress and 5 Easy Steps to Creating a Sitemap For a Website
• Want your site to load faster? Read The 5 Best WordPress Cache Plugins
• Want to get more readers? See Brand New Blog. No Traffic. Here’s What to Do. and The Best Email Marketing Services
• Want to learn how to blog from the pros? We’ve collected years worth of blogging content in our mega post Everything About Blogging

More Guides On Creating and Managing a Website

How to Plan Out Your New Website

How to Buy The RIGHT Domain Name – A Detailed Guide

How to Develop Your First Brand Identity on a Budget

The 5 Best Website Builders

The 5 Best Domain Registrars

10 Trending 2019 Website Color Schemes

9 Places To Get Website Images (Paid and Free)

The Best Website Fonts That Go Together in 2019

13 Website Design Best Practices

7 Reasons Why You Do NOT Need to Hire a Website Designer

The 22 Key Elements of a High Quality Website

How Much Copy Should You Write on Your Homepage?

10 Contact Page Techniques That Make People Contact You

How To Create an About Page That Matters

How to Make a Wix Website in 6 Easy Steps

Some useful guides for optimization as your site gets up and running:

Website Speed

Website Usability

Website Security

Website Mobile Friendliness

5 Easy Steps to Creating a Sitemap For a Website

Should You Switch Your Site to HTTPS? Pros and Cons

The Top 10 Principles That Boost Your Website Loading Time

Web Hosting Guides

You need a web hosting provider in order to have a website.

We recommend SiteGround for most people. For advanced WordPress users, with high traffic websites, it could make sense to move to WP Engine at some point.

More about The Best Web Hosting Companies here.

Here are some additional guides to help you learn more about web hosting:

Everything You Need To Know About Web Hosting

The Best Web Hosting for Small Business

The Best Web Hosting for WordPress

The Best Free Web Hosting

The Best Cheap Web Hosting

The Hidden Costs of Website Hosting

Analytics and Reporting

An analytics tool is important if you want to know what’s happening on your website. It tells you how much traffic you’re getting, where it’s coming from, and what people do on your site. Google Analytics is the standard. That’s what we use for Quick Sprout.

Read more about why Google Analytics is the best.

Installing Google Analytics is easy. Consuming the reports is a bit more complicated.

Here are some guides to help:

The 2 Website Analytics Tools Pros Actually Use in 2019

Setup Google Analytics in 3 Steps – The Beginner’s Guide

10 Vital Customizations to Make in Google Analytics

A Guide to Google Analytics Add-on for Google Sheets

How to Track Your Leads with UTM Parameters

Building and Optimizing With WordPress

A WordPress website is basically made from what’s called a WordPress Theme and WordPress Plugins. All of the features of your website will come either from the theme or the plugins you install.

To help you get started, we reviewed all of the best WordPress Plugins across the most popular categories.

Here’s an in-depth review for each category:

Best SEO Plugins for WordPress

Best WordPress Gallery Plugin

Best WordPress Backup Plugin

Best Form Plugin WordPress

Best WordPress Cache Plugin

Best WordPress Security Plugin

Best WordPress Calendar Plugin

Best Google Analytics Plugins for WordPress

Best WordPress Popup Plugin

Best WordPress Directory Plugin

Best WordPress Booking Plugin

Best Membership Plugins for WordPress

Best Social Media WordPress Plugin

Ecommerce Websites

If the primary purpose of your website is to sell products, you’ll need an ecommerce website. We recommend keeping it simple and going with Shopify.

Read our full review on Shopify to see why.

Check out our review of the Best Ecommerce Platforms, to get a comparison to the other options out there.

Get the step-by-step on how to start an online store.

Our guide on how to create an Ecommerce website.

More useful guides on building an Ecommerce website:

WordPress Ecommerce

How to Transfer Your Website to Shopify

Best Ecommerce WordPress Themes

Best Ecommerce Website Builder

Checkout Process Design

Ecommerce Color Schemes

How to Create a Trust Seal On Checkout Page

Starting a Blog

When you really break it down — most websites are blogs, and blogs are websites. They have become one and the same. The most popular blogging platform is WordPress, and that is also the same platform we use for any other website, blog or otherwise.

If you’re thinking about starting a blog specifically, and that is why you’re trying to figure out how to create a website…we have over 40 guides on blogging.

Here are the blogging guides specific to getting started, and building your blog:

How to Start a Blog

Best Blogging Platforms / Blog Sites

Best WordPress Themes for Blogs

Blog Design

11 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started My First Blog

The Top 12 Tips for Running a Successful Video Blog

10 Lessons Seth Godin Can Teach You About Blogging

100 Lessons Learned from 10 Years of Blogging

Creating Your Own Website: In Summary

Creating your website might seem overwhelming at first. It really comes down to starting with these simple steps:

1. Is your primary purpose to sell things on your website? If yes, then focus on Shopify, if no, then focus on WordPress.
2. Use the guides on Quick Sprout to help you through the process. It’s a learning curve for sure. Taking the time to set up everything correctly will help you grow your business and your traffic much faster later on.
3. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly via email with questions. We’ll help however we can.

Source Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/31L2TJ0

Best PEO Service Providers

PEO is the acronym for “professional employer organization.”

These outsourcing firms provide business services for functions like payroll, HR tasks, administrative roles, and other crucial activities to running a company.

PEO service providers are incredibly appealing for business owners because they reduce the workload of mundane but critical tasks.

Outsourcing these roles are cost-effective as well. Instead of having a full-time HR staff on your payroll, it’s much cheaper to contract that work. Plus, PEO service providers have the ability to negotiate rates related to employee health insurance or workers’ compensation expenses.

Whether you’re interested in hiring a PEO service for the first time, or looking to switch providers, this guide has you covered.

The 7 Best PEO Service Providers

There are countless PEO services available on the market today. From local providers to national names, and everything in between. Some PEO services are industry-specific, while others are intended for businesses of a certain size.

Finding the best PEO provider for your business can be challenging if you don’t have any guidance.

I narrowed down and reviewed the seven best PEO service providers below. I’ll cover the features, benefits, costs, and any drawbacks of each one as we continue.

Justworks

Justworks is a full-service PEO provider offering payroll, human resources, compliance, and employee benefits under a single umbrella package.

The company launched in 2012 but has quickly grown in both size and popularity over the last few years. They went from 40 employees in 2015 to 300 in 2018. Today, Justworks has more than 600 employees and relationships with major companies like United Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, and ClassPass.

In addition to employee benefits like health, vision, and dental insurance, Justworks also provides a wide range of compliance services. They handle W-2 and 1099 filings, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.

Justworks has an automated payroll system for direct deposit, paying vendors and contractors, and integration with your business accounting software like Quickbooks and Xero.

Another benefit of Justworks is that they can accommodate the needs for businesses of all sizes. So if you start working with them now, they can scale with you as your company grows.

Here’s an overview of their plans and pricing based company size:

Basic — Payroll, HR Tools, Benefits, and Compliance

• Less than 25 employees — $49 per month per employee
• 25-99 — $44 per month per employee
• 100-174 — $39 per month per employee
• 175+ — Custom pricing

Plus — Access to Medical, Dental, and Vision

• Less than 25 employees — $99 per month per employee
• 25-99 — $89 per month per employee
• 100-174 — $79 per month per employee
• 175+ — Custom pricing

You can save 15% on all plans when you sign up for an annual contract.

I like Justworks because they give you so many options. You’re not forced to take the health insurance package, but it’s available if you want it. If you’re just starting out and new to working with PEO service providers, you could always start with the Basic plan and upgrade to Plus when you’re ready.

Justworks offers 24/7 customer support. The company is modern and still growing at a rapid rate, so I expect them to continue providing excellent service in the future.

The only real downside of Justworks is their lack of experience. There are other PEO service providers who have been in business for decades.

Insperity

Speaking of experience, Insperity has been around for 30+ years. They provide full HR solutions for small businesses as well as enterprises with up to 5,000 employees.

In 1997, the company went public on the NYSE. They have a long list of awards, accreditations, achievements, and glowing reviews from their customers.

Insperity’s full-service HR solution includes:

• Employee benefits
• HR administration
• Payroll
• Risk management
• Compliance
• Talent management
• Tech services

For those of you who don’t need a full-service solution, you can also use Insperity for individual services.

While Insperity does accommodate the needs of businesses with 150-5,000 employees, I’d recommend their services to small and medium-sized business owners with less than 150 employees.

With Insperity, you’ll have access to the iOS and Android mobile apps to monitor and manage your business on the go. It’s a great option for those of you who enjoy leveraging the latest technology to streamline your processes.

For those of you who prefer working with large organizations, Insperity is definitely a top choice to consider. They did $3.8 billion in revenue back in 2018.

Although the company is big, they still provide excellent customer service and know how to work with small business owners.

Another top feature of Insperity is its flexibility. Unlike other PEO providers on the market, Insperity won’t lock you into a long term contract. You can cancel at any time, as long as you give them 30 day’s notice.

Insperity does not list prices for their services online. You’ll need to speak with their customer service sales team to get a custom quote.

A potential drawback of using Insperity for PEO services is that their health plan options are limited. Unlike other providers, Insperity only offers health plans from a single health insurance provider. So if your company wants to give your employees multiple options for healthcare, you should look elsewhere on our list. But this usually isn’t a problem for small business owners.

ADP TotalSource

ADP is an industry leader in technology. Since 2011 they have been providing software for human resources to businesses of all shapes and sizes.

But in addition to their robust technology, ADP TotalSource is a full-service PEO solution.

ADP is another top option for small to medium-sized business owners. Whether you have 1-49 employees, 50-999 employees, or 1,000+ members on your team, ADP has a plan for you.

ADP TotalSource is used for human resources, talent management, payroll, employee benefits, and risk assessment.

As a small business owner, you can use ADP to provide enterprise-grade medical, dental, and vision care to your employees. Furthermore, ADP also offers 401(k) plans.

The technology used by ADP is the biggest standout of this PEO provider. Everything from HR to payroll, benefits, and recruiting can be accessed and managed through a mobile app or easy to use web dashboard.

But arguably the best feature of ADP is the customer service.

Naturally, your employees will have questions. Whether it be about their pay, benefits, or something else that would fall into the HR category. Rather than bothering you with those questions, your staff can simply contact an ADP representative directly.

ADP’s knowledgeable and friendly staff will guide your employees in the right direction to answer any questions or help them pick a plan that fits their needs.

I like ADP because they also have industry-specific solutions for businesses in the following categories:

• Restaurant and hospitality
• Manufacturing
• Healthcare
• Construction
• Government and education
• Nonprofit
• Professional and technical services
• Financial services

ADP provides PEO services and technology in over 140 countries worldwide.

The only potential downside of using ADP TotalSource is the company’s size. Since ADP is so large, it’s possible that your small business could feel like it’s getting lost in the shuffle.

Paychex

More than 670,000 businesses trust Paychex. While the company is best known for its online payroll services, they are also a full-service PEO provider.

One of the biggest standouts of Paychex is the way that they provide PEO services. Your business will get a dedicated HR professional. In some cases, this dedicated HR manager can even be on-site at your office.

By working directly with your employees, Paychex takes HR outsourcing to the next level.

Since Paychex works so closely with your company, it makes it easier for them to assess workplace risks and address key areas of liability.

These are some of the top features and benefits of using Paychex as your PEO provider:

• Insurance plans
• Attendance
• Employee benefit accounts (HSA, FSA, HRA)
• 401(k) plans
• Payroll administration
• Unemployment insurance

Like other PEO providers, Paychex also offers individual services if you don’t need a full-service plan. You can search for solutions by task, business size, or role. Paychex even offers outsourced office management services.

From paperless hiring and onboarding to issuing payroll, Paychex does it all.

The only negative thing I can find about Paychex is that the interface is a bit outdated and not as user-friendly compared to options like ADP TotalSource.

The price for Paychex PEO services is based on the number of employees you have. Contact their sales team for a free consultation and quote.

Oasis Outsourcing

Oasis Outsourcing was originally founded in 1996. The company was recently acquired by Paychex in 2018, although Oasis still operates under its own name.

PEO services provided by Oasis Outsourcing include:

• Human resources
• Employee benefits
• Risk management
• Payroll
• Technology solutions

Oasis can help your small business get great deals on healthcare by bundling your plan with other clients. They’ll help you set up employee retirement plans as well.

Like other providers on our list, Oasis has some industry-specific solutions.

• Banking
• Architecture
• Hotels
• Education
• Restaurants
• Retail
• Private equity
• Legal
• Property management
• Financial services

I’d recommend Oasis to startup companies because they are versatile, but smaller than some of the other choices out there. Oasis can give startups the special attention that they need, even with just a handful of employees.

While some PEO providers allow for month-to-month commitments, Oasis will force you into a one-year contract. So for those of you who don’t want to get locked in, this won’t be the best option for you.

With that said, Oasis does offer a 90-day money-back guarantee window. So you’ll have some time to change your mind if you’re not satisfied in the first few months.

Contact Oasis Outsourcing to get a custom quote for your company’s needs.

TriNet

TriNet is one of the oldest and most experienced PEO service providers in the industry. After launching in 1988, the company has been serving businesses for more than 30 years.

As of today, they are currently working with over 16,000 clients and roughly 332,000 employees.

The PEO services provided by TriNet are similar to some of the others in the industry. They offer niche-specific solutions for:

• HR consulting
• Benefit options
• Payroll
• Risk mitigation
• Technology

TriNet stands out as one of the best PEO providers because of their service and attention to detail. Their team will be on standby for your employees.

Whether it’s during the hiring process, onboarding, or just day-to-day questions about their benefits or employee status, TriNet is there for all of those needs.

TriNet does not try to appeal to larger organizations. In fact, services are segmented by employee size into these three categories:

• 5-19 employees
• 20-99 employees
• 100+ employees

I’d recommend TriNet to those of you who fall on the lower end of this scale. A company with 500 or 1,000+ employees should look elsewhere.

TriNet offers a wide range of employee health benefit options through insurance companies like United Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Aflac, Aetna, and MetLife.

TriNet also has partnerships with big brands to offer small businesses and employees marketplace discounts. Some of those brands include Verizon, AT&T, Hyatt, and Avis.

To get a custom quote for your small business, simply fill out a short form field on the TriNet website.

Infiniti HR

While some providers force you to bundle all PEO services in one package, Infiniti HR allows you to pick and choose which ones you need.

Do you only need an outsourced human resources department, but not payroll? No problem. Infiniti HR can set you up with that.

In addition to the traditional PEO services that we’ve seen so far (HR, payroll, risk management, employee benefits, etc.), Infiniti HR also specializes in recruitment. This PEO provider will help get top-level talent to your team.

Another standout for Infiniti HR is the type of businesses that they serve. They work with lots of franchise organizations like Supercuts, Best Western, and Massage Envy.

Whether you own one franchise location or multiple franchises across the country, Infiniti HR will be a top choice for you to consider.

Infiniti HR has been in business for just over ten years. They are still growing and improving their services on what seems like a daily basis.

The Infiniti HR mobile app is expected to be released by the end of 2020. This technology improvement will definitely make their services more appealing.

How to Find the Best PEO Service Providers

There is quite a bit of information that must be taken into consideration when you’re evaluating a PEO service provider. Since so many companies seem to offer similar services, choosing the best fit for your business can be a challenge.

I’ll take you through the methodology that we used to come up with this guide. You can use these features as well during your search process.

Pricing

The first thing you should look at is the price of the PEO solutions. This will make it easier for you to eliminate options that might be out of your price range.

Unfortunately, not every PEO provider includes prices on their website. Since so much about this industry is customized, you’ll need to speak with a sales representative to get a quote.

But if you’re looking for a provider with transparent prices, Justworks will be a top option for you to consider.

Employee Benefits

While a PEO provider is supposed to reduce costs make your life easier as a business owner, it should also have a positive impact on your employees.

Things like retirement plans, health insurance, dental, and vision offered by a PEO will be appealing to your staff. Not only will this keep your employees happy, but it will also help you hire top-level talent.

Some PEO providers work with just one health insurance company, while others provide a wide range of options. So if diverse plans from varying providers is important to you, then make sure you find a PEO solution that can accommodate those needs.

Employee Self-Service

The best PEO providers offer technology for employee self-service. Whether it’s an app or web portal, your staff can access crucial information related to their pay, employee status, or benefits.

If the self-service options are not sufficient, you want to make sure that your PEO provider will be available to answer any questions via phone, email, or live chat for your employees.

Your staff should be able to do this without having to go directly through you to speak to an outsourced HR representative.

Business Size and Industry

A startup with five employees and a franchise with 2,000 employees across 50 locations will not be in the market for the same PEO service provider. Look for you providers that work with companies similar to the size of your business.

Furthermore, some PEO providers specialize in certain industries. Ideally, you want to work with a provider who understands your industry, whenever possible.

Conclusion

What’s the best PEO service provider?

The answer depends on a wide range of factors. Not every business is looking for the same thing in a PEO solution. Some businesses want a full-service PEO package, while others just want an outsourced HR representative.

Here’s a recap of the best PEO providers that we reviewed in this guide:

• Justworks — Best overall PEO service provider.
• Insperity — Best PEO services for small to medium-sized businesses.
• ADP TotalSource — Best PEO technology and employee customer service.
• Paychex — Best PEO provider for on-site HR and payroll.
• Oasis Outsourcing — Best PEO services for startups.
• TriNet — Best PEO provider for very small businesses.
• Infiniti HR — Best PEO service provider for franchises.

I’m confident that you can find exactly what you’re looking for from one of the providers on this list. I made sure to include something for everyone.

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5 Ways You Can Save $1,378 in 2020 (Even if You’re Awful at Saving Money)

The blank slate of a new year is something I always look forward to.

Many of us — myself included — try to commit to financial goals as we make our New Year’s resolutions. We have grand visions of saving more money… but we don’t always have a plan mapped out to make it happen.

That’s where the 52-Week Money Challenge comes in.

You may have caught wind of this challenge on social media around the beginning of January in years past. The premise is simple, but this savings endeavor gets more difficult as the year goes along.

The first week, you save $1. The second week, you save $2. The third week, you save $3…

The idea is to increase the amount you deposit by $1 each week until you eventually save $52 in week 52, the last week of the year. Stay disciplined and stick to the plan, and you’ll have $1,378 in your account at the end of the year.

Can you imagine what you could do with an extra $1,378? Go ahead, I’ll give you a second to dream.

Now let’s get back to reality. While saving over $1,000 in one year is wonderful, the classic 52-week challenge isn’t ideal for everyone. It’s good for those who love to raise the bar higher after each goal they reach. But others shudder at the thought of saving over $200 in the month of December. (You’d need to save $49, $50, $51 and $52 in the last four weeks of the year.)

The good news is that the 52-week challenge can be customized to work for your financial life. 

5 Alternative 52-Week Money Challenge Hacks 

We’ve come up with five new ways to complete the 52-Week Money Challenge. You’ll still make weekly deposits into your savings account, and you’ll still end up with $1,378 by year’s end. These options just have you going about the savings plan in different ways.

Method No. 1 — Odd Numbers Up, Even Numbers Down

This approach is for those who’d like the challenge to get easier as the year winds down. 

Here’s how it works: 

1. Start the year saving money on an odd-number basis, increasing the amount each week by $2. So in week one, you’ll save $1. In week two, you’ll save $3. In week three, you’ll save $5. Keep the pattern going until week 26, when you’ll save $51.
2. Once you hit week 27 (halfway through the year), you’ll switch your savings amounts to even numbers, starting with $52. From there, you’ll decrease the amount you’re saving each week by $2. So you’ll save $52 in week 27, $50 in week 28, $48 in week 29 and so on. Once you hit the last week of the year, you’ll only be depositing $2 into your account to reach that $1,378 total.

While you’ll need to put away large sums of money in the months of June and July, you’ll stress less about saving money at the end of the year.

Method No. 2 — Quarterly Breakdowns

Maybe you like the idea of saving more money each week, but you’d rather break up the time frame into smaller chunks. With this approach, you’ll save incrementally each quarter, which is every 13 weeks. 

Here’s how it works:

1. Deposit $1 into your savings account the first week. For the following weeks in the quarter, you’ll add $4 to the amount you deposited the previous week. So for the second week, you’ll deposit $5. For the third week, you’ll deposit $9. Keep up the pattern until you’ve reached week 13, when you’ll deposit $49.
2. Start the second quarter of the year by depositing $2. You’ll be in week 14 at this point. Start the pattern of adding $4 to each subsequent deposit amount until you get through week 26. So you’ll deposit $6 in week 15, $10 in week 16 and so on until week 26, when you’ll deposit $50.
3. Start the third quarter of the year by depositing $3. You’re now in week 27. Start up the pattern of adding $4 to the amount you deposit each week. In week 28, you’ll deposit $7. In week 29, you’ll deposit $11. Continue this pattern through week 39, when you’ll deposit $51.
4. Week 40 will be the first week of the last quarter of the year. You’ll start off by depositing $4 that week, and then you’ll jump back into the pattern you established in the previous quarters. You’ll need to deposit $8 in week 41 and $12 in week 42. You’ll keep at it until you’ve deposited $52 in week 52, resulting in a total yearly savings of $1,378.

Method No. 3 — Random Lottery

This method is for those who like to mix things up and not follow a predictable path. You’ll choose a different dollar amount at random each week to reach the savings goal.

Here’s how it works:

1. Get 52 slips of paper, and write an amount from $1 to $52 on each piece. Fold each slip of paper and put them in a jar.
2. Blindly select a slip of paper each week. The amount on the paper you pull will be the amount you deposit that week. Discard each slip of paper after you select it. Instead of doing weekly drawings, you could also create a chart or spreadsheet that outlines how much you’ll deposit each week. At the beginning of the year, you can draw slips of paper for all 52 weeks and write down on your spreadsheet how much you’ll save each week.

This approach to saving is completely arbitrary. You might deposit $5 one week and then $50 the next. 

Method No. 4 — Semicontrolled Lottery

This method is a hybrid between completely random selection and incremental savings deposits. 

Here’s how it works:

1. Write deposit amounts from $1 to $52 on slips of paper.
2. Separate the paper slips into four piles: $1 to $13 in one group, $14 to $26 in the next group, $27 to $39 in another group and $40 to $52 in the last group.
3. Fold the paper slips and put each group into its own jar. Label them Jar One, Jar Two, Jar Three and Jar Four.
4. Blindly select a slip of paper from Jar One in the first week. Pull from Jar Two the second week, then Jar Three in the third week and Jar Four in the fourth week. Discard each slip of paper after you select it for the week. Go back to Jar One in week five, and repeat that pattern through the end of the year. You can also choose to do the selection for the entire year at the beginning of the year, using a chart or spreadsheet to record which amounts you picked from the jars for each week.

With this method, you’re guaranteed to be depositing a mix of dollar amounts each month — some on the lower end and some on the higher end. Although you’re still incorporating some random selection, you won’t ever run into the possibility of making four deposits over $40 in one month.

Method No. 5 — Steady Savings

If you thrive on consistency, this option is perfect for you.

Instead of varying the amount of money you save weekly, you can deposit $26.50 into your savings account each week for 52 weeks to reach that $1,378 goal by year’s end.

This is a simple, uniform approach to meeting this money-saving challenge. Sure, it may not be as fun (for those of us who think saving is fun in the first place), but it gets the job done.

You don’t have to think twice about how much you need to save each week. In fact, you can automate your deposits at the beginning of the year and not think about them at all.

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The Most Lesson: Just Start Saving

Now that we showed you it’s possible to save over $1,000 in one year, the question is: Which method will you choose?

We’ve highlighted several options, but keep in mind there are many other ways to customize a money-saving challenge to your liking.

Maybe you get paid every other week, and you want to make your deposits biweekly so they fall on payday. Perhaps you’d rather commit to depositing money in your savings account once a month. Or maybe the bulk of your income comes from tips, and you prefer to save your cash on a daily basis.

You also don’t have to constrict yourself to saving $1,378. (I have to admit, it’s a pretty odd amount to stick with.) If your budget is tight and saving $52 in one week seems impossible at any time of the year, you could cut the suggested weekly deposits in half. You’ll still net $689 by the end of the year. Or maybe you have a bit of wiggle room in your budget and you want to double the weekly deposits, which will give you $2,756 in savings at the end of the year.

No matter how you choose to do it, the important thing is that you’re consciously making the effort to save. Get in the habit of regularly putting money aside so that when 2021 rolls around, saving money won’t even seem like a challenge to you.

Nicole Dow is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’ll probably go with method No. 5.

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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Online Dating Is So Popular It’s Sparking New Side Gigs

Dating is going digital.

Finding a partner through courtship at a social gathering now seems so quaint — and rare. Roughly 25 million Americans turned to dating apps this year.

“Online dating is the mainstream way to meet and start dating,” said Dawoon Kang, the CEO of the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel.

The shift has come swiftly. And for many, the anxiety of dating is amplified by the fear of committing a digital faux pas. (We matched! Should I message first or wait for them? It’s been five minutes. OK, I’m just going to go for it. Wait — what should I say?)

Even seasoned online daters are going through a bit of burnout. Throw in scores of new dating apps, and it can be hard to keep up. To help people navigate the ever-changing world of romance, dating-adjacent jobs — yes, actual jobs — are cropping up. 

“Singles are exhausted with today’s swipe-based culture. Some may be looking for guidance, reassurance, or just a standout profile,” Kang said.

4 Jobs to Help People on the Dating Scene

Here are four legit ways people are making money in the flourishing world of online dating.

1. Dating Profile Consultants

Move over, Yente from Fiddler on the Roof. 

Virtual dating assistants — think of them as modern-day matchmakers — typically start with a pulsecheck on their clients’ dating profiles.

“Ten years ago, my profession wouldn’t have even been an option,” Meredith Golden, aka the “Tinder Whisperer,” told The Penny Hoarder.

After a career in psychotherapy, Golden started a dating service in 2016 dubbed SpoonmeetSpoon, which offers dating plans ranging from $300 to $2,500. For lower-end services, Golden will create or jazz up a dating profile and impart a few conversation starters. For the “The Whole Shebang,” she does all the work. Swiping. Messaging. Setting up the date.

“Singles are exhausted by today’s swipe-based culture.”

This type of work is in high demand. Dating can feel like a full-time job, especially when juggling multiple conversations across multiple apps. Within three days of launching her business, Golden says she received 8,700 hits.

If launching a consulting business of your own sounds a little too high stakes, start smaller by freelancing on websites like Fiverr and/or Upwork. 

Dating app assistance is especially trendy on Fiverr. Freelancers list their services between $5 and $125, offering services like ghostwriting and full-on profile management.

2. Dating Profile Photographers

What good is a dating profile without if there aren’t several high-quality photos? While some people use whatever pictures they have floating around social media, others let the pros work their magic.

It’s similar to using professional headshots for LinkedIn. Singles want to put their best photo forward. Demand for dating-profile photography has driven the success of Hey Saturday and Tinder Photography, two businesses that shoot only dating-profile photos.

Cashing in on that demand requires a bit of leg work, and starting a photography gig is no easy feat. So why limit yourself? Well, you don’t have to. But in a field as oversaturated as photography, finding a niche can help you stand out from your competition. Plus, dating apps themselves act as client referrals. What better way to get a sense of who has grainy profile pics than to use the dating apps that match you with people in your area?

Another way to find clients is to sign up to photography networks. Dating-service company Vida Select contracts photographers and stylists across the U.S. to spruce up people’s profiles. Snapr, an on-demand photography marketplace, likewise connects photographers with clients seeking high-quality dating-profile photos.

3. Catfish Private Investigators

Private investigators are nothing new. The profession has been around for nearly two centuries, but online dating culture has created a shift in the work private eyes do. 

According to the FTC, online romance scams are on the rise. The practice is referred to as “catfishing,” when someone misrepresents themselves online to earn the trust of someone else, usually in a romantic context. 

Instead of tracking down missing persons or nailing insurance fraudsters in traditional cases, private eyes increasingly use their skills to find who exactly is behind a dating profile. Is it really a multimillionaire model who owns a private island in the Carribean? Or is that person catfishing? The International Counterintelligence Service, a private investigation firm founded in 1967, dedicates several pages of its website to highlight how catfish investigations work.

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Private eyes may be an age-old job, but they’re not going away any time soon. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the field is expected to grow 8% by 2028 ― much faster than the average profession. And P.I. salaries clock in at just over $50,000.

4. Date-Night Host on Airbnb Experiences

Planning a romantic evening is tough work. Some daters are opting to let others do it for them. 

Airbnb Experiences is a ripe platform to attract dating couples with tailor-made date nights. Airbnb soft launched the Experiences feature in 2016. Trends in date-night listings are newer still. 

If you’re not familiar with Experiences, it’s a way to make money by hosting a unique activity. Think guided meditation on the beach or a craft beer pub crawl that showcases your town’s microbrews. 

Or your listing could be a curated date-night that features hands-on cooking with local cuisine. Lucia Celi, a chef in San Diego, overtly targets couples and daters with her listing titled “Date Night Cooking Class.” In her Experience, she hosts a two-hour cooking class where couples prepare their own pasta dishes and tiramisu from scratch. She charges $68 per person — 20% of which goes to Airbnb.

Want to learn how to make a successful listing? Two Airbnb Experiences Hosts shared their moneymaking secrets with us.

Experiences should broadly fit into one of these categories: Art and Culture, Entertainment, Food and Drink, Nature, Sports or Wellness. Once you’ve got a good idea, submit it to Airbnb for approval.

As online dating continues to popularize, Kang of Coffee Meets Bagel expects dating-related jobs will too.

“A lot of us learn to connect with others behind our phones and can find it hard to build connections in real life… Get[ting] to know each other initially over a digital device can be hard,” she said. “And yes, more singles will be open to getting help.”

Adam Hardy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. He covers the gig economy, entrepreneurship and unique ways to make money. Read his ​latest articles here, or say hi on Twitter @hardyjournalism.

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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Bring These 8 Financial Aid Questions Along With You on Your Campus Tour

Yes, you want to see the dorms, the library and the student union, but you should add the financial aid office to your list for the campus tour. 

It’s an essential stop to get your financial aid questions answered — but you’ll need to do more than simply show up.

That’s what Certified Financial Planner Alexandra Wilson discovered when she accompanied her boyfriend to his college financial aid office. At 28 years old, he was returning to school to continue his undergraduate studies and wanted to consider his options for financial assistance.

Wilson had plenty of experience working with her own clients who were dealing with student loan debt. So despite the fact that she was 10 years out of school, she felt confident that she knew what to expect. 

“I was shocked at the experience we had going into the financial aid office,” she said. “It’s a kiosk and there’s someone — younger than him — telling him just click, click, click, and not explaining anything to him.”

Her less-than-human experience helped her understand why her own clients kept telling her they didn’t understand any of the financial aid information she was sharing with them.

The average undergraduate took out more than $4,400 in federal student loans for the 2018-19 school year. That’s a lot of money depending on a few clicks — especially for a student taking a college tour without a CFP by their side.

Pro Tip

During your meeting with the financial aid officer, be sure to get their contact info — full name, email address and direct phone number — so you can reach them more quickly for follow-up questions.

“If an 18-year-old right out of high school doesn’t have their parents, they’re just taking what this other peer of theirs is saying as the truth,” Wilson said. “That could be really dangerous.”

Her advice? 

“Push hard for a sit-down appointment,” Wilson said. And if anyone tries to pressure you into just clicking through a kiosk screen at the financial aid office? “I would take a step back and be like, ‘No, I want to sit down in an office with someone, even if it means I have to come back tomorrow.’”

So you know you need the appointment — but what do you ask once you sit down? That’s where we come, with the eight essential questions to ask when you meet with a financial aid adviser.

8 Financial Aid Questions to Ask During Your Campus Tour

Scheduling a campus tour stop at the financial aid office might not be as exciting as spending time in the quad or as inspiring as checking out the biology lab, but you’ll thank yourself for doing it later. We’ve compiled eight essential questions you need to ask to help you avoid student loan debt.

1. What Does Your Ideal Student Look Like?

This might seem like a softball question, but asking what the college values in a student could help you discover opportunities for money outside of loans.

Most colleges are seeking well-rounded students who demonstrate interests outside of schoolwork and may offer assistance to those who excel in a sport, activity or volunteer work, according to Amy Irvine, a Certified Financial Planner and founder of Rooted Planning Group

“Ask, ‘What does an ideal student look like, and what would they be eligible for in grants and scholarships?’” she said.

2. What’s Your Priority Deadline for the FAFSA? 

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is essential if you’re applying for financial aid. The opening date each year is Oct. 1, but each college has its own deadline.

But waiting until the last minute to submit the form means you’ll be the last to receive consideration. The “priority” deadline for your school may be just a few days after the FAFSA opens, so it pays to ask, said Marla Lewis, financial aid associate director at the University of North Florida.

Pro Tip

Since you’re using tax data that’s more than a year old to fill out the FAFSA form, your family’s financial situation might change. If it does, inform your school’s financial aid office.

Some of the colleges stop reviewing applications only three or four days after the FAFSA form becomes available, she said. “That’s how quickly the money runs out.”

Also ask about deadlines for any additional forms you’ll need to submit to qualify for financial aid — some colleges also require the College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile in addition to their own in-house applications, which are typically available on the university website.

3. What Merit-Based Scholarships Can I Qualify For?

If you don’t qualify for need-based financial aid, merit-based scholarships are your best way to avoid student loan debt.

But even if you qualify for subsidized student loans (which don’t accrue interest while you’re in school), every scholarship you qualify for is additional money for college that you don’t need to pay back.

And the time to ask about scholarships is before you receive your acceptance letter, according to Lewis.

“If you haven’t applied when you’ve been admitted, then I’m assuming you don’t need it,” she said. 

During the meeting, it’s essential to ask how much the average merit-based scholarship is to help you anticipate its impact on your tuition bill. 

And don’t assume you can’t qualify if you’re not graduating at the top of your class, Irvine advised.

“[Ask] what are the SAT requirements, what are the GPA requirements?” she said. “Because maybe you’re only three points off from something, and you could re-sit for the SATs.” 

4. What Additional Fees Are Associated With My Major?

Among the hidden costs of college you should ask the financial aid office about is the fees associated with your major. Some require expensive equipment (like aviation) or pricy materials you’ll need to buy separately (like art supplies). 

And although you may have an idea of your budget for freshman year, you’ll want to ask about upperclassmen credit hour costs (which are often higher to cover the expense of smaller classes). 

Otherwise, you may find your financial aid package coming up short as you progress through your college career.

5. What Is It Going to Cost Me to Live Here? 

One campus may start to look like another if you go on enough tours, but getting specific information about the cost of living is particularly important if you’re moving away from home for the first time.

Pro Tip

If you plan to live on campus, most colleges require all first-year students to purchase a meal plan — check out these ways to save money on food beyond the meal plan.

“If you’re not familiar with the area, the financial aid officer is a great person to talk to and be like, ‘What is it going to cost me to live here?’” Wilson said. “‘Am I going to have to take out more student loans?’” 

A few questions to include on your list:

• What are the typical cost of meal plans and what does the average student use?
• Is cooking allowed in the dorms? Is there a community kitchen? Where can you buy food?
• If you aren’t bringing a car, what are the average costs for public transportation? What geographic area does public transportation cover and what is its hours? 
• What is the cost of a movie ticket (or whatever entertainment you prefer)?

Knowing the answers to such questions can help you budget for food costs, decide if you can reasonably access an off-campus job and adjust for the cost-of-living difference between your hometown and college community.

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6. What’s the Average Student Loan Debt for Graduates in My Major?

By using platforms like the College Scorecard, you can discover how much student loan debt the average student in your major graduates with compared to first-year salaries.

Knowing your first-year salary as a teacher may be helpful, but the first-year salary for a doctor might not be indicative of future earnings.

By meeting with the financial aid office, you can drill down to specifics, like graduate’s five- or 10-year average earnings, who’s hiring them and how long it’s taking them to pay off debt.

The financial aid officer you meet with may not have the information immediately at their fingertips, but you should follow up with them to get an idea of how likely a job in your major will pay off the student loans.

7. What If I Accept More Student Loan Money Than I Need? 

You may be worried about not getting enough financial aid to pay for college. But what if you get too much?

That’s an important question to ask, Wilson said, noting that she once had a client who graduated with $20,000 leftover in student loans.

“They’d already accrued several thousand dollars in interest,” she said. “The loans had origination fees for the extra loans they’d taken out, and they could have avoided those if they had just used the extra each year.”

Your college will receive your student loan or scholarship money first to cover tuition and fees. It will issue a check at the start of the semester for any money that’s left over.

So what should you ask the financial aid office?

“What if I have $5,000 leftover [at the end of the year], and I want to send it to pay off student loans,” she said. ““How can I pay back a portion of it… or do I just take out less loans next time?” 

8. How Much Will It Cost to Pursue My Interests?

This is usually the fun part of the campus tour: when you get to learn about all the fun stuff you can be a part of. Join a fraternity or sorority! Play in the marching band! Study abroad!

But all those activities cost money — sometimes thousands of dollars — and student loans don’t cover the expenses.

It doesn’t mean you’ll need to live a lonely life confined to the cinder block walls of your dorm room. You just need to ask the financial aid office what your options are for covering the costs.

Wilson said she learned that the hard way during her own college experience — in an effort to avoid student loans, she didn’t investigate study abroad options.

“I always thought it was too expensive, and then after the fact I realized there were all these scholarships that could have almost paid my way to go,” she said. 

Wilson said in retrospect, she wishes she had met face-to-face with a financial aid officer to ask questions and get the most bang for her buck. 

Even if you don’t need to take out student loans, the financial aid office should be a stop on everyone’s campus tour. Talking with them — and doing your own additional research — can help you discover thousands of dollars that won’t have to come out of your pocket.

“Make this your part-time job for a little bit.” Wilson said. “There’s free money on the table you’re not taking.”

And there’s no question about it: Finding free money is a smart move.

Tiffany Wendeln Connors is a staff writer/editor at The Penny Hoarder. Read her bio and other work here, then catch her on Twitter @TiffanyWendeln.

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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