NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks tumbled Thursday on Wall Street, with technology companies suffering their worst loss in seven years, after Apple reported that iPhone sales are slipping in China.The rare warning of disappointing results from Apple stoked investors' fears that the world's second-biggest economy is losing steam and that trade tensions between Washington and Beijing are making things worse. The sell-off also came after a surprisingly weak report on U.S. manufacturing. [...]
Source Business - poconorecord.com http://bit.ly/2Avay3k
الخميس، 3 يناير 2019
Download LetGo: Sell Your Old Clothes and Bank Some Extra Cash
You’re ruthless when it comes to deleting old games to make space on your smartphone.
Can the same be said of making space in your closet?
Or are you still clinging to that prom outfit from, like, 10 years ago?
It’s never going to fit — or come into style — again, but something just keeps holding you back from sending it to Goodwill.
Maybe money could change your mind. Instead of storing clothes indefinitely, try selling them.
One app we especially like is Letgo.
You can literally list all those unused frocks, jumpers, peasant tops and jean jackets in less than a minute — quicker than you can say, “I haven’t played that game in weeks!”
Download Letgo now and clear that closet.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2s982en
Download Empower and Let Them Negotiate All of Your Bills for You
Those virtual coins and jewels might be easy enough to find, but the real stuff? That’s a bit trickier.
Let the Empower app be your guide to real-life treasure as it helps you organize and track your financial goals.
Simply link your accounts, and every time you log in, you’ll see a simple snapshot of where you stand on your monthly budget. Are you above or below the line? In one second you’ll know whether you’re on track or need to dial things back a bit.
Empower even has a cool “find free money” feature. It’ll do things like negotiate your cell phone bill, review your insurance coverage and cancel unwanted subscriptions.
Penny Hoarder Ayanna Gaines used the app to help after she took a hit in her paycheck when she switched jobs from academic to public librarian.
Gaines estimates that the app has helped her save up to $720 in overdraft fees as well as another $200 to $400 by improving her spending in the year and a half that she’s used it.
“It helps you get a better control over your financial situation,” Gaines says. “It’s adulting in a less painful way. “
Download the Empower app now and start finding more ways to save 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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2BW5JQs
Download MoneyLion and Get Paid When You Pay Your Bills on Time
The euphoria of success in a video game is fleeting.
But winning at personal finance? You can ride that high all the way to retirement.
Let your secret weapon be MoneyLion, a free all-in-one app for managing your personal finances.
MoneyLion offers rewards to help you develop healthy financial habits and will literally pay you for logging onto the app.
You can earn points in the rewards program by paying bills on time, connecting your bank account or downloading the mobile app. Redeem those points for gift cards to retailers like Amazon, Apple and Walmart.
It’s like having a rewards credit card without the temptation to overspend.
The app also connects with all your bank, credit card, student loan and other financial accounts. Based on your income and spending patterns, it offers personalized advice to help you save money, reduce your debt and improve your credit.
Download the MoneyLion app now and get ready to get paid for being financially responsible.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2R5uzYH
Visit the Zebra and Get a Free Quote on Your Car Insurance
For many, car insurance is just one of those things where we cave in and pay. Because, just like the electric bill and phone service, we need it, right?
There’s no getting around car insurance, unfortunately. But one way you could save money is by shopping around and comparing rates at least once a year. Less than 50% of us do that.
So, just like you compare the prices of flights, shoes and laptops before purchasing, why not compare car insurance?
The Zebra, an online car insurance search engine that offers “insurance in black and white,” compares your options from 204 providers in less than 60 seconds.
Artie Januario decided he had nothing to lose and compared insurance quotes through The Zebra’s online search engine.
In about half an hour, he had new insurance — and managed to knock off about $30 a month.
“The Zebra is literally there to save me money, which I think at the end of the day, that’s what everybody wants,” he says.
Check out The Zebra to get your free car insurance quote before automatically renewing your current provider.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2SBRBTq
Download MobileXpression and You Might Win a $25 Amazon Gift Card
You’re playing games on your smartphone anyways — why not earn some real cash while you’re banking virtual booty?
A number of companies will actually pay you for downloading apps on your smartphone or computer — an easy way to boost your passive income!
One app we love is called MobileXpression. After you’ve installed this app on your smartphone for one week, you get to play an instant rewards game for a prize.
Best of all, everyone wins something.
We’ve seen users win a $25 Amazon gift card, but some of the other prizes include iPads and Samsung TVs.
The app collects data and helps companies better understand web and mobile usage — such as what times of day people browse, how long they stay on websites and use apps, and what types of sites and apps are popular (or not).
Try it out for iPhone or Android.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2As8CIU
Download Lucktastic and You Might Win Cash With Their Free Lottery Tickets
There’s something so satisfying about those gas station scratch-off tickets, but it’s better to avoid them because, well, that’s not Penny Hoarding.
Instead, try scratching for free using an app called Lucktastic. Each day, it releases a new assortment of digital scratch-off tickets. Instant wins range from $1 to $10,000.
You can also earn tokens that you can exchange for free gift cards to retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Kohl’s, Sephora and more.
The app is supported by advertising, which allows it to keep the payouts high and the games free. Yes, free.
Download the app and start scratching away (minus the mess).
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2LNnqpM
Is Someone Else Ruining Your Credit Score? Here’s an Easy Way to Find Out
Imagine going through an exhaustive search to find just the right vehicle. You know, your dream car. Then, when you sit down to do the financing, you discover your credit score isn’t great. Heck, it’s not even good. Bye bye, dream ride.
How did that happen? You pay your bills on time. In fact, you’ve worked hard to keep your credit in good standing. What gives?
What if there is someone else out there driving their dream ride that they purchased using your identity? Oh, and they don’t make the payments, either.
If there is anything worse than knowing your bad decisions ruined your credit score, it’s discovering someone else has stolen your identity and wreaked havoc on your score.
Don’t just hope it doesn’t happen to you. Credit Sesame can keep an eye on your score and find out immediately if someone tries to mess with it.
Credit Sesame Identity Theft Protection Has Your Back
Identity theft can happen just about anywhere. It could be the result of data breach or phishing scam. Or maybe that innocent-looking cashier at the grocery store was memorizing your card info while you were sorting your coupons.
If you want to keep your finances secure and orderly, you’ll want to protect your information.
Credit Sesame helps you avoid identity theft by keeping a watchful eye your finances.
Credit Sesame’s free identity theft protection will alert you to important changes in your credit report (like someone trying to apply for credit in your name), and it offers $50,000 in identity theft insurance.
Isn’t that better than counting on Jim at the grocery store to keep his prying eyes off your personal info?
Once you sign up, you’ll not only be able to keep an eye out for identity theft, you’ll get a great look at your credit score and what is going right and what could use a little work. It’s like having a credit score coach to help you get that winning number.
Tyler Omoth is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder who loves soaking up the sun and finding creative ways to help others. Catch him on Twitter at @Tyomoth.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2SFnpHm
Is Someone Stealing Your Money? Here’s a Simple (and Free) Way to Check
It seems like each day there’s a new massive data breach. You hear about gas station ATM skimmers on the local news. You scroll through a friend’s Tweet-rant about how her identity was stolen, and someone wracked up $1,239 in charges at Chick-fil-A.
It’s a little scary, right? Well, your wary feelings are valid.
In 2017, there were 371,061 reports of identity theft in the U.S., according to the Federal Trade Commission.
So, yes, identity theft could happen to you. But there’s a simple, free way to keep tabs on your identity to see if someone has stolen it. (You don’t want to foot the bill for all those chicken sandwiches, right?)
Here’s How to Find Out if Your Identity Has Been Stolen
Not sure how to know if your identity has been stolen? Don’t wait until it’s too late — until your banking statements are stacked with frivolous charges.
Instead, take 90 seconds to sign up for Credit Sesame.
Credit Sesame helps you avoid identity theft by keeping a watchful eye on your finances.
Its free identity theft protection will alert you to important changes in your credit report (like someone trying to apply for credit in your name), and it offers $50,000 in identity theft insurance.
Of course, you’ll want to keep tabs on your checking, savings and credit card accounts, but Credit Sesame will help you tap in behind the scenes.
Now you can sit back and breathe a little easier knowing your identity — and money — are safe.
Carson Kohler (carson@thepennyhoarder.com) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2At35Si
Use This Site to See If You Qualify for a No-Collateral Loan Up to $100K
When you think about how much credit card debt you have, you might feel a little anxious.
A lot of us are being crushed by credit card interest rates north of 20%. That means if you can only make minimum payments every month, your balance is going up and up with high interest.
It’s like you can never get a break.
If you’re in that boat, consolidation and refinancing might be the best option.
That’s where a company like Fiona comes in.
Fiona will show you all the lenders willing to help you pay off your credit card and eliminate the headache of paying bills by allowing you to make one payment each month.
You can borrow up to $100,000 (no collateral needed) and compare interest rates, which start at 4.99%. Repayment plans range from 24 to 84 months.
Take, for example, Katherine, who faced $12,000 in credit card debt. Holding her back? The 15.24% interest rate. By refinancing with a 5%-interest, seven-year personal loan, she saved $12,000 in interest.
If she’d kept on the same road, she would have paid something like $14,000 in interest alone over 25 years. Yikes.
Check out Fiona’s website to see if you qualify for a no-collateral loan to help you start consolidating your credit card debt today.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2VpTN2d
Sign Up for Paribus and You’ll Get Cash For Not Deleting Your Emails
It turns out deleting your emails could be costing you money. Intrigued?
One of our secret weapons is called Paribus — a tool that gets you money back for your online purchases.
It’s free to sign up, and once you do, it will scan your email for any receipts. If it discovers you’ve purchased something from one of its monitored retailers, it will track the item’s price and help you get a refund when there’s a price drop.
Plus, if your guaranteed shipment shows up late, Paribus will help you get compensated.
That’s what single mom Aimee B. does. In the past two years, she’s recouped $1,000 while shopping online.
“My time is worth a lot,” Aimee says. “An hour of my time saved is absolutely worth its weight in gold.”
Or, at least, $1,000 back in her bank account.
Sign up for Paribus and start making money back on your online purchases today.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2RsnmkF
Download Digit and Get a 1% Bonus on Your Savings Every 3 Months
Saving money is tough. So what if you could do it in a way where you wouldn’t even notice?
Digit makes that possible.
This innovative app automates saving for you. Simply link it to your checking account, and its algorithms will determine small (and safe!) amounts of money to withdraw into a separate, FDIC-insured savings account.
If that’s not enough, savers also receive a 1% bonus every three months.
If you need that money sooner than expected, you’ll always have access to it within one business day.
Using this set-it-and-forget-it strategy, Penny Hoarder Matt Wiley saved $4,300 without noticing.
“It feels weird saying ‘I saved,’ because I really didn’t do anything,” he says.
Digit is free to use for the first 30 days, then it’s $2.99 per month afterward.
Download the Digit app now and see how easy saving can be.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2To3uMQ
Sign Up for Credit Sesame and Get $50K in Identity Theft Insurance for Free
It happens more often than you might think — nearly 3 million times a year.
We’re talking about identity theft — when someone hijacks your name for their own purposes.
All fraudsters need is your Social Security number to open lines of credit and rack up significant debt in your name.
It’s best to catch them as early as possible.
How to Protect Yourself From Identity Theft Scams
An app called Credit Sesame helps you avoid identity theft by keeping a watchful eye your finances.
Credit Sesame’s free identity theft protection will alert you to important changes in your credit report (like someone trying to apply for credit in your name), and it offers $50,000 in identity theft insurance.
It’s a free way to protect yourself from losing thousands of dollars to scammers. Do your bank account a favor and sign up today.
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.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2R5b2r8
Balancing Inexpensive Cooking at Home and Family Time
Marilyn writes in:
If I go home after work and cook dinner, I have to spend half an hour in the kitchen by myself cooking and fifteen minutes after the meal cleaning up. If I pick up food after work, I can eat immediately with my family and there’s no cleanup and then I get 45 minutes more time with my family. That’s more than worth the few bucks I might save by cooking myself.
The gist of the rest of Marilyn’s email was that frugality tips centered around home food preparation weren’t very useful to her at all.
Let’s set the stage here. My wife and I are both employed full time. We have three children at home varying from elementary to middle school aged. Sarah and I both like being able to spend time with our children in the evening, just like Marilyn does. Yet, we prepare almost every meal we have as a family at home because the cost savings are huge for a family of five and because the meals at home are healthier and usually tastier. For us, the cost savings of home meal preparation is so large that we’d have to have some pretty major objections to it for other reasons to not prepare a meal at home.
At the same time, Marilyn does raise some good points about the time cost of home food preparation. It does mean that at least one family member is going to be spending some time in the kitchen, both during food preparation and during cleanup. That does take away time that one could be spending with the family on other activities.
However, the issue isn’t nearly as bleak as it seems in terms of family time. Let’s break down some of the less obvious factors in this picture and some of the things you can do to reduce the impact of food preparation on family time.
Ordering and Picking Up Food Has a Time Cost, Too
One thing that people often overlook when it comes to ordering food is that it has a time cost as well. Even if you’re looking at a highly efficient situation in which (a) you’re able to order while still at work for a pickup time, (b) you arrive at the restaurant close to that pickup time and can park close to the door, and (c) the food is actually ready when you arrive, you’re still losing a good five or ten minutes on your arrival time at home compared to just going straight home. You’re still driving over to the restaurant, getting the food, then driving away from the restaurant.
If anything in that scenario is less than optimal, the time goes up significantly. If you order from a restaurant that’s not right along your normal commute, you’re adding a lot of time. If you arrive too early, you’re adding time. If you arrive on time and they’re not ready for you, you’re adding time. Those aren’t rare situations.
You’re also still dealing with at least some cleanup when you get home. Most of the food packaging will go in the trash, filling up a trash bag much more quickly than it otherwise would and probably necessitating time to change garbage bags and take out the trash.
While those things might not take as much time all told as preparing a meal yourself, many people treat that time as not counting at all and think of picking up food as having zero time cost, which just isn’t true.
Cook in Pairs for One-on-One Family Time
If you’re finding that meal preparation is eating up a lot of family time, consider cooking in pairs.
Each night, simply designate one family member to help with the meal preparation. That person spends time with you in the kitchen and you work together preparing the meal, talking about life, and teaching and learning new kitchen skills.
This serves a number of benefits at once.
For starters, it gives you some one-on-one time with one of your children, which is great when you have multiple kids. I have three children and it’s sometimes very hard to find good one-on-one time with them. Cooking a meal together provides that one-on-one time. I get to ask that child about their day, find out how school is going, share some private jokes, maybe (if I’m lucky) be able to offer some decent advice – good parenting time, in other words.
Another good reason for this is that it provides a window for your children to pick up skills in the kitchen. You can teach your kids how to chop an onion, how to boil pasta, how to scramble eggs, and so on. This gives them a situation where they can practice those skills with guidance so that they’re undaunted by doing those tasks when they move away.
A third reason is that for many meals, cooking in pairs reduces prep time. Simply assign some of the straightforward tasks to your assistant chef and you can effectively multitask in the kitchen. For example, I might be pulling items out of the pantry while my daughter is filling up a pot with water so that it can boil. I might be cutting up a loaf of bread while my son is preparing a sauce from a recipe and occasionally asking questions. I might be straining the water off of some pasta while my son is setting the table. Of course, while this is all happening, we’re having a conversation about life, the universe, and everything.
Cooking in pairs almost always reduces prep time, gives you a chance to connect with your partner in cooking, and gives a great opportunity to teach life skills.
Clean Up as a Group for a Family Activity/Chore
Just as cooking can be a good multi-person activity, the cleanup can be, too. Plus, it’s something that several people can tackle at once.
At our house, if cleanup from a meal would take fifteen minutes, we just engage everyone and it takes perhaps five minutes. One person wipes down the table. Another person rinses dishes while a third person loads the dishwasher. A fourth person might be putting things away from the cooking that didn’t get put away before the meal was served. A fifth person is taking out the trash. We’re done in five minutes.
Not only that, those five minutes are often good moments for family bonding. We’ll have a couple of ongoing conversations or, as often happens around the holidays, we’ll sing some songs together while doing it. If it’s snowing, it’s virtually a guarantee that my daughter will start singing “Let It Snow” and then Sarah and I will start singing it somewhat to each other as we’re finishing up cleanup after the meal.
Yes, it’s cleanup time, but it’s quality family time, too. It doesn’t have to be a drudgery task for just one person, nor should it be.
Having everyone involved in cleanup after the meal gets it done way faster and gives a great opportunity for some family bonding.
Use a Slow Cooker
Another completely different angle on all of this is to simply use a slow cooker so that the meal is basically done when you arrive home. You simply fill up the slow cooker with ingredients and turn it on before you leave for the day and when you arrive home a home-cooked meal is either completely done or close to it.
We use it frequently to make soups, stews, and casseroles, and it can be used to cook wonderful roasts and chicken, too.
This effectively moves the meal prep time to the morning or, in part, to the night before, a tactic we’ll touch on again in a bit.
A meal in a slow cooker is even more efficient in the evening than stopping for takeout because the food is already done and waiting for you at home. All you have to do is drive straight home and eat, which means that you save the time you would have used stopping and picking up food.
I’ve written about slow cooker use many times in the past, but this article is my best compilation of tips for people in busy situations.
Use Meal Prep Days
Another really useful strategy for making meals work at home and balancing family time is to have “meal prep days,” perhaps on days when the family isn’t around or on a day when you have a family member or two willing to help.
Meal prepping simply means that you’re making a bunch of meals in advance and preparing them to the point that they can be packaged up and stored in the freezer for future use. Then, when you decide you want to use them, you pull them out of the freezer and let them thaw for a day or two, then finish cooking them.
A great example of this is lasagna. We often make four pans of homemade lasagna at once, using one of them for that night’s dinner and freezing the other three. We basically prepare the pans up to the point of putting them in the oven, then one goes in the oven and the other three are covered and put in the freezer.
At some point in the future, we’ll pull out one of those pans of lasagna, allow it to thaw for a couple of days in the fridge, and then on some particular busy night, Sarah or I will pop it in the oven and let it bake at 350 for an hour. There’s zero effort in the evening, in other words – you just flip on the oven and then an hour later the meal is done.
This strategy works incredibly well for soups and stews, too. Just make a giant cauldron of soup or stew, then separate it into freezer containers. All you have to do is reheat the leftover soup or stew for an evening meal at a later time, and many soups and stews are even better the second time around. (I actually prefer “second time” chili.)
What this strategy does is that it moves most of the meal prep time for a home cooked meal to another day entirely. It also leverages the benefits of simultaneous meal preparation to save overall time. For example, if I’m making four pans of lasagna at once, I only have to boil water once instead of four times (meaning only one pan and one strainer to clean), I only have to make the cheese layer mix once instead of four times (meaning only one bowl and one spoon to clean), and I only have to chop vegetables once instead of four times (meaning only one cutting board and one knife to clean).
The tasks are often faster, too, because you can combine tasks. For example, once you’ve set up a cutting station, you can use it to chop up all of the vegetables for four or five meals instead of one. You only have one setup and one cleanup, but it covers several meals at once.
Even if my kids have something else they need to be doing, like homework, I’ll have them do it at the kitchen table during dinner prep so we can be near each other and I can answer questions if they have them.
Here’s a nice guide to twelve great strategies for a successful meal prep day that I wrote last year if you’re interested in this tactic.
Move Some Meal Prep Tasks to the Morning or the Night Before (or Even Earlier)
Yet another strategy I like to employ to give us more family time in the evenings is to handle some of the meal prep tasks the morning before the meal or the evening before or sometimes even a day or two beforehand.
You can do things like chopping vegetables a day or two in advance by putting chopped vegetables in a container in the fridge. You can cook your beans and your rice in advance and keep them in a container in the fridge. You can make sauces and mixes in advance and keep them around for when you need to use them.
You can even synergize these steps. Let’s say you have two meals you’ve planned this week that use beans. Simply cook a double batch of beans all at once on Sunday afternoon, put them in the fridge after they’ve cooled off, and then use half of them for Monday’s meal and the other half for Thursday’s meal. That way, you only have to deal with cooking beans once but you get the benefit of that effort with two different meals.
The Secret To Making Many of These Strategies Work Is Meal Planning
The secret sauce with all of these strategies is meal planning. If you come home with the intent of “throwing something together out of whatever’s in the fridge,” it’s probably not going to work out well. You’ll spend a ton of time looking through things and deciding what to make and that will just add to the meal prep time. Even worse, many of the above strategies, like making meals in a slow cooker, making them in advance, and handling meal prep elements at other times in the week are cut off to you.
Our family’s meal planning structure is described in this earlier article, but here’s a summary. It follows six basic steps:
Step 1: Get a Flyer
Step 2: Find Sales on Fresh Ingredients
Step 3: Do Some Recipe Research
Step 4: Create a Week-Long Meal Plan
Step 5: Make a Shopping List from the Meal Plan
Step 6: Go Grocery Shopping – And Stick to Your List
At the end of this, we have a list of meals for the week and all of the ingredients on hand to prepare them. When it’s time to think about supper, we just look at the plan and get to work.
Our meal plan (done in step 4, above) usually includes a meal or two that was prepped in advance and one or two slow cooker meals. Those are slotted in when evenings look like they’re going to be busy (Thursdays… *shudder*). I know that in a given week, I’m usually going to be making three or four (or so) evening meals, one or two of which will be slow cooker meals, one to three dinners will be meals that were previously prepped and frozen, and there’ll be a meal prep day most Saturdays when I’m at home where three meals get added to the freezer.
The meals that I do make – both the regular ones and the batch of meals made in advance – usually rest on ingredients that are on sale this week, which I find in the grocery store flyer. When I go to the store, I have a list in hand and thus I blitz through that shopping trip in record time – and, magically, my list has a bunch of items on it that just happen to be the on-sale items in the store, so I end up not spending as much as you think at the checkout. I’ve had cashiers be surprised at how much food I bought compared to the total, and that’s without using coupons and just buying store brands and hitting stuff that’s on sale.
Here’s the thing: I often take at least one kid to the store with me these days and they actively help with the grocery buying. Again, it gives me a chance to teach my child a life skill and because I’m sending them off to find some of the items on my list while I’m shopping for other items, it’s saving time, too. We get to have conversations in the car and in the checkout line.
Final Thoughts
In the end, a desire for more family time shouldn’t dissuade you from cooking at home because it can become family time (at least in part) and it can actually free up family time during the busiest evenings of the week. However, to do that, it requires a bit of advance planning and organization, but you’re enormously financially rewarded for these efforts. Doing your meal planning with grocery flyers and grocery shopping with a shopping list makes your trips to the store surprisingly cheap and the cost of an average meal at home becomes even that much less than the cost of a restaurant meal.
The truth is that having an inexpensive home-cooked meal with your family on a weeknight evening and still having family time before or after the meal usually comes down to advance planning and getting your family engaged in the process.
Good luck!
The post Balancing Inexpensive Cooking at Home and Family Time appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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How to get a pay rise in 2019
I’ve employed hundreds of people and have seen many great and many awful pitches for a pay rise.
But there are only two ways, or at least two good ways, to approach asking for a pay rise in the private sector, and one in the public sector – which I outline below.
How NOT to ask for a pay rise
Money is always on the table for great talent, but first, some sure ways not to ask for a pay rise, are:
1. Tell your employer that you can’t cover your bills and you don’t have enough to live on, or to pay off your house and car. Employers don’t care about that and will only see that you can’t manage your money. They can also feel emotionally blackmailed, which has a high chance of backfiring on you.
2. Tell them you have another job, or are thinking of leaving, and using this as leverage. This is advised by some ‘consultants’, but I’ve never felt good about this, even though sometimes I may have fought to keep an employee doing this.
It goes very bad very quickly if a staff member plays off the new employer versus the existing one. As soon as I am used as a pawn to get a pay rise because the new employer is offering more, I’m out.
3. Ask for a pay rise because you heard that a colleague got a pay rise. This never works, at least not for me. It’s none of anyone else’s business what others are paid. Why would anyone increase someone’s salary just because they increased their colleagues’ salary? That’s not sound logic or financially smart.
This also erodes the trust of discretion. An employer’s big fear is that when one person asks for a raise, everyone does. It can stop it from raising salaries of people who deserve it. So always be discreet and never use this as leverage to get a raise.
How to ask for a pay rise in the private sector
Here are the two ways I believe you are most likely to get a raise and maintain and build goodwill with your employer, if you are in the private sector:
1. Book a meeting (monthly review, salary review, one to one) and show grace, gratitude and calm emotions to your employer. Big up the company and your relationship with it, then point out in clear, specific detail, what extra revenue, cost savings, systems and time savings you have brought to the company.
Measure it against what it would have been without your role or input. Have it printed out/evidenced. Show the gross and the net. Then politely request your raise. Request it as 10% or less of additional profit you have brought to the company.
2. Book a meeting (monthly review, salary review, one to one) and propose some actions you will head up or undertake that will increase future turnover and net profit, and then request up to 10% of the net profit as a bonus or salary raise. “If I could bring in £20,000 net profit in the next six months, would you pay me just a £2,000 bonus?”
If you are in a role that doesn’t appear to be revenue generating, such as admin, consider the following:
- Where have you saved money that you can measure?
- Where have you saved time, in hours, that can be measured, and then put an hourly monetary value on it.
- What systems and processes can you/have you set up that save time and money?
You could talk about both points 1. and 2. in the meeting, or 1. in one meeting, and 2. in a meeting in two to three months’ time.
How to ask for a pay rise in the public sector
If you are in the public sector, your boss or employer may not have the autonomy to make instant decisions. This may be harder. My experience is not in the public sector, but motivational speaker, Brian Tracy, told me this in 2007 and I think it is your best chance of getting a significant pay rise in the public sector:
“Seek out the job or role that pays the salary you desire, then learn everything about that role and offer the value to the company. Do the job that pays the salary you want.”
This can take time, but remember that you chose to be in the job you are in. If you feel like you will get nowhere, consider moving into the private sector.
You only ever get a raise when you show one thing: value. You must show value first. Most employees want payment first, then they might offer the value. The world doesn’t not work this way.
Your employer wants and needs to make profit. Your employer wants happy clients, referrals, productive and loyal staff. Show these, give value first, and you will get your raise.
If you do all this and don’t get your raise, another employer will snap you up, and you know you are working for the wrong company.
That is on you to decide, but also ensure you have given your existing employer enough chances to help you develop, because a change could be as bad as it could good.
Rob Moore – the so-called ‘Disruptive Entrepreneur’ podcaster is co-founder of Progressive Property, a property investment training company, business of the year winner 2016, and 8x best-selling author of books including 'Life Leverage' and ‘Money: Know more, make more, give more’.
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