Do you end up with a headache and little or no tax refund after all your tax return effort? Follow these nine tips to maximize your refund.
Source CBNNews.com http://bit.ly/2RwTuVg
الأربعاء، 16 يناير 2019
How to Easily Get a $1 Million in Life Insurance for as Little as $6/Month
You get it. Life insurance is important.
If something were to happen to you, what would happen? Who would pay for final expenses? What happens to your debt? Your home mortgage? Your family?
OK, breathe. Sorry about that. It’s going to be OK, because we’ve got good news. Not only is life insurance affordable, you may even be able to get a $1 million life insurance policy for the price of a fast food meal each month.
Leave Behind a $1 Million Gift
If you think $1 million is more than you or your family needs, it might be time to think again. Consider final expenses, debt, such as a home mortgage and auto loans, college tuition and years of lost wages. The last thing you want to do is leave your family with less than they need.
Death is never a fun topic. Honestly, it’s the farthest thing from it. Unfortunately, it’s a fact of life — it happens to roughly 100% of people. Despite how uncomfortable it might be, it’s something we all need to think about.
If you have a family, the last thing you want is to leave them without any financial support once you’re gone.
Maybe it’s time to think about life insurance. It doesn’t have to be the uncomfortable experience you might expect. Some newcomers in the industry are updating the old model.
Ethos, for example, can get you term life insurance in less than 10 minutes — with no medical exam — for coverage up to $1 million. Ethos offers a digital application, and customer service is available if you have questions.
It partners with a major life insurance carrier to quickly offer policies as low as $6 a month. It’s helped thousands of folks access term life insurance, including independent contractors who use Uber, Postmates, TaskRabbit and other gig apps.
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/2SYd5u9
This Site Grades How You’re Doing Financially — for Free. See Where You Are
When you were a little kid, did you get good grades in school?
Be honest, now. Maybe sometimes you did and sometimes you didn’t.
Now that you’re adulting, are you getting good grades in life?
Hard to tell, isn’t it? Life doesn’t hand out letter grades at the end of every semester. You get an A for your career and a B for your looks and a D for your social life…
But wait! We know a way to get letter grades for one of the most important parts of your adult life — your finances.
We’re fond of a free credit-monitoring service called Credit Sesame. It’ll show you your credit score, but that’s just the beginning.
It’ll also give you an in-depth “credit report card” that breaks down exactly what’s on your credit report in layman’s terms, how it affects your score and how to address it.
To drive the point home, it’ll give you letter grades on five different factors that affect your credit: your payment history, credit utilization rate, credit age, account mix and number of credit inquiries.
(I know from personal experience it really pops out when you get a “D” grade in one of those categories.)
The credit report marks that these grades represent affect your credit score, for better or for worse. And the higher your score, the better deal you’ll get on a mortgage, car loan or credit card.
Even if you’re not buying a house anytime soon, a lousy credit score means you’ll get hit with a high security deposit whenever you rent a car or move into a new apartment.
Life doesn’t grade on a curve, man.
Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. Out of Credit Sesame’s five categories, he only got one “D” grade. Only one!
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/2ARRa0z
Want $30 to Spend on Anything at Walmart? Follow These 2 Simple Steps
How would it feel to whack $30 off your next grocery bill?
Your shoulders sink as you eye the increasing subtotal, then — wait! You’ve got $30 in gift cards. What a rush!
This is quite an easy feat to accomplish. Here’s how.
1. Get a $10 Gift Card for Walmart
Plus, you’ll get up to 40% cash back for basically anything you buy online.
Yep — one of our favorite ways to save is with Ebates, a cash-back site that rewards you nearly every time you buy something online. For example, Ebates gives you up to 10% cash-back on online purchases at Walmart.
You’ll get your free $10 gift card to Walmart when you give the site a try.
To earn your gift card:
- Sign up for Ebates with your email or Facebook account.
- Use the Ebates portal the next time you need to buy something. It’s connected to thousands of stores, including Walmart, Amazon and Target. You’ll need to make your first purchase through the site within 90 days and spend at least $25.
- Your account will be credited with rewards points you can cash out for your $10 Walmart gift card.
2. Stock up on Toilet Paper, and Get a $10 Bonus
Have you heard of Ibotta? If not, you’re in for a treat… specifically, a $10 bonus.
Ibotta is a cash-back app that’ll pay you for taking pictures of your grocery store receipts.
Here’s how it works: Before heading to the store, search for items on your shopping list within the Ibotta app. (Toilet paper is almost always on there!) When you get home, snap a photo of your receipt and scan the items’ barcodes.
Bam. Cash back.
Ibotta will grant you a $10 bonus after you snap your first receipt. Once you claim a total of $20 in cash back, you can cash out for, well, cash or a gift card to your favorite retailer.
That’s another $20 toward groceries!
Bonus: Get Rewarded Just For Walking Into The Store
All right. You’re armed with those gift cards.
Before stepping into Walmart or your grocery store of choice, download Shopkick. It’s another app that’ll reward you when you go shopping.
Once you sign up, the app pays you in “kicks” for simply walking into certain stores (including Walmart, Target, Aldi and more). You can redeem them for gift cards to a number of retailers, including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Sephora and Best Buy.
It pays you even more kicks for photos of receipts that include qualifying items you purchased in-store with a connected credit or debit card. You can also earn kicks for online purchases. You don’t have to do anything; your linked cards will automatically apply your rewards.
The best part is all these apps keep on giving. Even after you’ve claimed those bonuses and earned your initial rewards, you can continue to use them to save every time you shop.
Carson Kohler (carson@thepennyhoarder.com) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s managed to earn $155 in cash back from Ibotta. Truly a thrill.
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/2RYtth3
How to Make a Wix Website in 6 Easy Steps
Every business needs a website. But for those of you who have never created a website before, this can seem a bit intimidating.
It doesn’t matter if you’re just launching a new startup company, if you’ve been in business for a decade, or fall somewhere in between. You need to have a website to increase your reach and establish a digital presence.
Ultimately, your website will serve as the center or hub of everything that you do.
It’s a place people can find basic information about your company, such as your location, phone number, and email address. All of your campaigns should be driving traffic to your website. If you’re going to sell products and services online, your website will facilitate those transactions.
But before we get ahead of ourselves and into all that, it’s time to get back to the basics: How do you build your own website?
There are tons of different website builders out there, but Wix is definitely a top option to consider. (It’s our top pick for best website builder for automating the tough decisions.)
I like Wix because it’s very easy to use. Someone who has never created a website before can get a site up and running in no time at all. Even if you have some experience building websites, you can use Wix as an alternative option to simplify what you’ve done in the past.
Plus, Wix gives you hundreds of templates, pages, and web hosting services for free. You’ll eventually want to upgrade to one of their premium plans, which are very affordable, but we’ll talk about that in greater detail later on.
Even though it’s easy to make a Wix website, you can still cut some of the trial and error out by using this step-by-step guide as a reference.
Let’s dive right in.
Step 1: Create an account
Like almost anything else you do online, the first thing you need to do is set up your account. It’s really simple, and should only take you a few seconds.
From the Wix homepage, just click on the “get started” CTA in the center of the screen.
If you’ve been doing research and find yourself on another one of the Wix pages, you can still get started without having to navigate back to the homepage. Just look for the CTA, which might be worded slightly differently depending on the content that you’re looking at. For example, from the “Explore” page you’ll want to click “Create Yours Today” to move forward.
It should be pretty self-explanatory, but if you’re struggling, you can always go back to the homepage, or just click here to create your account.
Unlike other platforms that ask for nearly everything but a blood sample to sign up, Wix asks for just two things.
- email address
- password
It’s optional, but they’ll ask you some follow up questions as well to help you create exactly what site you’re looking for. Answering these questions will help Wix’s ADI builder help you create a site you like faster.
Who are you creating a Wix site for?
- yourself
- a client
- company you work for
- someone else
What type of site Wix site are you building?
- business
- online store
- music
- designer
- blog
- portfolio
- events
- photography
- restaurants and food
- accommodation
- beauty and wellness
What is your level of expertise building websites?
- built sites professionally
- created many websites
- made a few websites
- never done this before
Here’s an example of what this might look like for you, depending on the options that you’ve selected above.
From here you’ll have two options.
You can allow the Wix ADI to create a website for you. All you need to do is answer some questions, and it’ll make a site for you in just a few minutes, complete with custom text and images. It’s almost magical how good it is — you should definitely try it out.
Alternatively, you can use the Wix Editor to make a website on your own. For our learning purposes today, this is the route that I’ll go with.
Step 2: Choose a template
Wix offers hundreds of standard templates at no charge. You can search for a template based on category. For example, let’s say you want to create a Wix business website. Some popular categories include:
- automotive & cars
- advertising & marketing
- consulting & coaching
- finance & law
- pets & animals
- real estate
- services & maintenance
- technology & apps
All of the template options are located on the left side of the dashboard. Take some time to scroll through and find one that fits best for the type of website you want to build.
Check out the first template on this page. It’s a “Coming Soon” landing page. Even if your website isn’t built just yet, it’s important to least start off with this type of landing page. For startup companies, creating a website may be the first thing you do, even before you actually register your business name or create an LLC. Wix understands this, which is why they give you this option.
Alternatively, you can select a blank template and build your own from scratch. While this is definitely something you can consider, I recommend going with one of the pre-designed templates. This will make your life much easier in the long run, especially if you’ve never built a Wix website before. If you’re up for a challenge and want to be a bit more unique, go ahead and give the blank template a try.
When you hover your cursor over each template, it will tell you if it’s free or if you have to pay. Once you find a template that you like, just click “edit” to continue.
Step 3: Save your work
It’s not a huge deal, but unfortunately, Wix’s autosave feature doesn’t turn on until you manually save for the first time. So before we make any changes at all, let’s manually save the page.
The “save” button is located at the top right corner of the screen.
Be forewarned: If you leave the Wix Editor and make changes in Wix Code, which is more advanced and not recommended for beginners, there is no autosave function. There’s also no autosave function for contributors.
Step 4: Edit your site
After you select a template, you’ll be brought to the Wix Editor.
Basically, this is what your website will look like if you decide to publish it right now. It’s up to you to make the necessary changes to make the website your own.
Here’s a basic look at what you’ll see when you’re editing the content on your future site:
Anything can be changed just by clicking on it. Start with the basics, like replacing the template company with the name of your actual business.
For our purposes, let’s just say I am redesigning the Quick Sprout homepage with Wix.
In less than one minute, look at what I was able to accomplish.
I replaced the Axis Group with Quick Sprout on the center of the page, as well as the in the top left corner of the menu bar. I also swapped out the dash on a red background with the letter “Q” on a green background in the left corner of the menu bar.
The financial consulting texted was changed to “Grow your business, faster.” You can also see that I changed the red “get started” CTA to a green “contact us” CTA.
Look at the menu options at the top of the screen as well. The original template had a “news and updates” page. I clicked on that and changed it to “blog” because that makes more sense for the site that I’m building.
Again, I made all of these changes in less than a minute. All you have to do is click on what you want to change, and follow the instructions on the screen. It’s that simple.
You can replace images when any custom photos you’ve taken for your website. Or you can refer to our guide on the best places to get website images (paid and free).
It’s easy to drag and resize any of the content on each page, too. The Wix Editor allows complete customization based on your personal preferences.
Step 5: Optimize your site for mobile devices
The mobile version of your website should not look the same as the desktop version. Part of having a good website means that it needs to be easily accessible from smartphones and tablets.
If you don’t have a good mobile site, you could lose more than half your customers: more than 52% of all Internet traffic comes from mobile devices.
Fortunately, Wix makes it easy to optimize your web design for mobile users. Just click on the mobile icon at the top of the screen to switch between desktop view and mobile editing.
Wix does a great job of changing the content for you, so it’s automatically optimized. However, you may want to manually make some changes on your own. The changes you make here won’t impact the desktop version of your site.
Before your site goes live, make sure you go through the mobile version of each page to ensure that’s it’s properly optimized to your liking.
Step 6: Connect your domain
Before you can publish your site and have it go live, you’ll need to connect your domain name.
The easiest way to do this is from the dashboard. Just click “Connect Domain” to proceed.
By default, your website domain will be: yourusername.wixsite.com/mysite
You’ll have the option to change the “my site” portion of that domain for free. But, that’s definitely not how you want your site domain to look.
When was the last time you went to a legitimate and credible site that had all of that extra stuff, including the website builder in the domain name? It’s not a good look for your business.
Wix gives you the option to buy a domain name directly from their platform or connect a domain name that you already own. I recommend not buying your domain from Wix, but at a place that specializes in domain names, and putting a lot of thought into get the right domain. If you haven’t done this yet, refer to our recent guide on how to buy a domain name.
Wix lets you create a website for free, but you’ll eventually want to upgrade to a premium account. This is when (and why) you want to do that. Without paying for a premium account, you’ll be stuck with the “wixsite” in your domain name.
Packages start at $11 per month, but if you’re using this site for business purposes, you’ll want to pay more than that. Even Wix’s most expensive business plan is just $35 per month. It comes with features such as:
- accept online payments
- unlimited bandwidth
- connect your custom domain
- free domain for one year
- 50 GB of storage
- $300 ad vouchers
So review all of the premium plans to find the one that’s best for you. Depending on what you select, it will only cost you between $132 and $420 per year. That’s pennies considering how much money you can make with a website.
Conclusion
It’s that simple. You’ve learned how to make a Wix website.
There’s not much to it — just six easy steps.
Once you go through everything outlined above, all you need to do is publish your Wix website, and it will be live on the Internet for everyone to see.
To recap, create a Wix website for the first time by following these simple instructions:
- Create an account
- Choose a template
- Save your work
- Edit your site
- Optimize for mobile devices
- Connect your domain
That’s it.
Once you complete the steps, you can publish your site and start generating leads, driving traffic, and selling products online. Your opportunities are endless.
What type of business or brand page are you going to build on a Wix website?
Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2SXFy33
Pensions dashboard gets the green light - but will it go far enough?
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A new online service that will enable savers to view details of all their pensions in one place looks as if it will finally get the go-ahead in 2019.
It is hoped the new ‘pensions dashboard’ will make it easier for people to see how much they have across multiple schemes and give them a greater sense of control and engagement with their pension.
The service could also reconnect savers with lost pension schemes and help them make more informed retirement income choices at the end of their saving journey.
The idea of the pensions dashboard has been around for some time, with progress hampered by logistical challenges created by the number of different organisations involved and the data that needs to be gathered. However, in 2016 the Financial Conduct Authority challenged the government to make a dashboard available to consumers by 2019.
Commenting on the announcement, pensions expert Ros Altmann says: “I welcome the news that the Prime Minister has given official endorsement of the development of pensions dashboards, which can help people keep track of all their pensions in one place. Having a proper picture of how much your pension savings are worth and what you might receive in retirement can be an invaluable tool in planning for later life.”
However, she said there were still multiple challenges the government and financial services industry need to tackle if the scheme is to be a success.
Old legacy pensions that are not recorded electronically, for example, could take years to upload on to the system, and at great cost.
Ms Altmann says: “Rather than waiting for all legacy schemes to be ready for a dashboard, it would be more practical and sensible, I think, to begin with just the pension records of auto-enrolment. These records, which only started in 2012, relate to more modern pensions that are more readily transferred into a common electronic database. Together with the new digital state pension forecasts, putting auto-enrolment pensions and the state pension on a dashboard could be achieved more quickly.”
She adds: “By focusing first on auto-enrolment, the pensions industry could provide a proper dashboard for younger workers, who will be able to see all multiple pots in one place. For those with older pensions, the legacy records could be added over time.”
In the meantime, a standardised statement for legacy schemes could be developed, which individuals could upload onto their dashboard themselves.
Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell, however, was less enthusiastic about an incomplete dashboard.
He says: “Without legislation in place requiring all schemes to participate, the early rollout will be limited in the extreme. While modern platforms and pension providers competing for new customers will want to get involved, older schemes operating outdated technology may need a kick up the backside.
“In the age of instant online banking, people rightly have high expectations of financial companies. A half-baked dashboard risks being discredited from the start.”
As such, he adds, the government will need to be clear about what information is included and what is missing.
“The biggest danger is that people will make poor decisions based on incomplete information – this situation must be avoided or the long-term damage to individuals and trust in pensions generally could be huge.
“How retirement income information is presented to people will also be critical in ensuring those who utilise dashboards are spurred to action. In an ideal world, pensions would not just be presented to people as pots of money but also converted into retirement income estimates they can actually relate to.”
Mr Selby also warns the dashboard alone may not be enough to engage consumers. “While building the dashboard is an important step, in order to foster genuine engagement, individuals need to be given timely information in a simple, clear way they can relate to, rather than heaps of unintelligible documentation.”
A non-commercial dashboard will be hosted by the Single Finance Guidance Body, but the government is permitting financial services companies to develop their own dashboards too.
WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW
Don’t wait for the pensions dashboard to be up and running if you think you may have old pots you’ve lost track of. While there is more than £5 billion sitting untouched in lost pensions, it’s easy to track them down for free. Contact the government’s Pension Tracing Service (Gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details).
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Source Moneywise http://bit.ly/2Mcghj0
Lincoln’s Axe and Frugality
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln
I love this quote from Abraham Lincoln. It’s such a clear analogy about the value of preparation. Cutting down a tree is hard work, and it is much, much harder if you’re using a dull axe – your strokes are far less efficient and you’re likely to become worn out well before the job is done. You’re much better off getting the axe nice and sharp before you head out to chop down that tree.
This same phenomenon is true with almost everything one might do in life – hard things are made easier if you properly prepare for them.
In my early professional career, I used to keep this quote as a printout in my cubicle (and, later, my office) where I worked as a programmer. I found that I was almost always better off spending lots of time preparing for tasks so that when the time came to actually perform, I was very efficient and accurate at the task at hand.
That meant doing things like learning about the nature of the data I handled and what it actually meant, learning about software development techniques and new languages, documenting operating procedures, and writing lots of software libraries and functions that I could use later. In short, I spent a lot of my time sharpening the figurative axe.
The truth is that we’re faced with this choice all the time in modern life. Do we get started right away, or do we invest some time in advance to make that task go more smoothly and efficiently? Often, that prep time doesn’t feel like we’re doing anything – we can feel like we’re making no progress on the task at hand. Yet, preparation often drastically reduces the amount of time and energy and money we have to invest in a task.
This pops up frequently even in frugality. With frugality, much like everything else in life, sharpening the axe is usually the right choice.
Here are five clear examples of frugal tasks where “sharpening the axe” and doing some prep work ahead of time will save you a ton of money and often end up making the task so much more efficient that you don’t actually lose any time overall, either.
Sharpening the axe while getting groceries Before I ever go to the grocery store, I’ve written down a meal plan for the next several days (usually planned with help from the grocery store sale flyer) and I’ve assembled a grocery list from that meal plan so that I’m sure to be getting the things I need for those meals and not buying extra things.
This makes the actual time at the grocery store buying groceries incredibly efficient. I have a list in hand that already includes a lot of sale items. It also includes all of the things I actually need and doesn’t include anything extra. When I’m at the store, I can just fly through the aisles following just that list and I’m automatically grabbing things that are on sale. I can buzz right through a store with that list and the total bill at the checkout is usually very agreeable.
Sharpening the axe while deciding where to shop Spending time shopping at several different local grocers to figure out which one offers the best prices overall for the things you buy can take some time, but once you’ve done that, you can settle in with a regular grocery store and feel confident that the prices on the shelves are very competitive and that you’ve chosen a store with a good efficient location for your needs.
This takes some time, sure, but the time spent getting regular groceries at several stores and then saving the receipts for comparison, then comparing those receipts to determine which store saves you on the things you buy most often is an incredibly efficient use of your time. It allows you to figure out the best store for your grocery shopping needs, and then you can just automatically shop there with confidence going forward and you’ll simply spend less money on groceries by default.
Sharpening the axe while shopping for a car Rather than going to a car dealer and getting “sold” on a particular car, the “sharpening the axe” approach involves doing some research to figure out exactly what you want before you ever set foot on a dealer’s lot. This involves sitting down and considering what exactly you want out of a car, then turning to trusted publications like Consumer Reports to identify makes and models that match your needs.
For example, you might have this vague notion that you want a “family vehicle,” but with some thought, you might realize that you want a “reliable late model used van,” and then you turn to Consumer Reports to find that the most reliable used vans in the three to six year old timeframe you’re looking at are Toyota Siennas and Honda Odysseys, so then you can go shopping for those specific models in those specific years.
Once you know what models you’re looking for, you can canvas the websites of lots of dealerships before ever going there, and you can also check other services like Craigslist and eBay Auto to potentially buy your vehicle directly from a seller. You can get a sense as to what you should pay for such a vehicle by researching blue book prices and have all of that information ready before you ever set foot on the lot. That way, you’re not wasting time looking at models that don’t match your needs and you’re not going to spend a lot of time negotiating, either. The car buying process becomes much faster and you get the car you want at the price you want.
Sharpening the axe while buying insurance If you have insurance needs or simply want a better rate than you’re currently getting, the time invested in figuring out what insurance features you need before you ever shop around and then taking that information to several insurers to get quotes can seem like a lot of effort, but if you do this, you’re likely to get an insurance package that’s much more in line with what you actually need for the best possible price. You can also research specific insurers to see how friendly and available they are for customer support and claims.
Sharpening the axe while making meals in advance This is a wonderful example of how preparation in advance can make a huge difference on a busy night. Simply make a bunch of meals in advance that you can freeze and pop them in the freezer. Do it on a day where you’re not particularly busy so that you can devote the time to making several casseroles or batches of soup.
Then, when you’re actually trying to thread the needle on a busy evening, you can just pull a meal straight from the freezer and pop it in the oven with no prep time at all, enabling you to have an inexpensive but delicious home-cooked meal for your family even on the busiest of nights.
You can use this same philosophy for some of the more time-intensive meal prep tasks for the week ahead. If you’re going to need beans for Tuesday’s dinner, cook them on Sunday and save them in a container in the fridge so that the meal prep on Tuesday is far more efficient. Chop tons of onions and peppers when you have them in abundance and store them in one-cup quantities in freezer bags so you can just dump them right into a skillet as needed. Meal preparation offers countless opportunities for preparing pieces in advance so that the actual task isn’t overwhelming.
The core principle behind all of these ideas is this – any time you can spend a little bit of time and effort up front to clarify exactly what you want and what the most efficient approach is to get it will save you a ton of money and the time and effort will usually be recouped, too.
You can almost never go wrong by investing downtime in preparing for a task that you know is coming up. It’s a far better use of your time than just spending that time on idle distractions like looking at your phone or channel surfing. You’ll save time when you need it most and quite a lot of money by using your downtime to “sharpen the axe” for more cost-effective and time-effective behavior later.
Good luck.
The post Lincoln’s Axe and Frugality appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2SXV4w3
Paring Back: The Power of Minimalism to Tidy Up Your Home and Your Finances
Have you decided that 2019 will be your year of decluttering, minimizing, and consuming less? If so, you’re not the only one. As Becoming Minimalist founder Joshua Becker discovered, the topic is on a lot of people’s minds.
Becker’s new book, The Minimalist Home, was released on Dec. 18. Within an hour, Amazon was sold out. By that evening, Walmart, Target, and other smaller online booksellers had run out of copies, too.
A few days after the publication date, Becker wrote to his newsletter subscribers that his publisher had misjudged the popularity of the title — it sold more copies in the first week than his previous book, The More of Less, had in two-plus years.
The timing was a perfect storm of holiday gift-giving and New Year’s goal-setting, but it probably also helps that his process as defined in the book is practical and approachable.
“My specific approach is that you go room-by-room through your home, easiest to hardest, finishing entire spaces along the way and noticing how that positively impacts your life,” Becker says.
But it’s not the only emphasis. Becker’s approach takes decluttering and shows you not only what to keep and what to discard, but ties all of it to a greater purpose. He pushes you to ask, “What is the life I want to be living?” After asking that question, you then figure out what items you need to keep in order to fulfill that purpose.
Minimalism and Your Money
Becker also addresses minimalism from a bigger financial perspective. Making more money, he writes in the book, is not the answer to getting ahead financially, and there are two primary reasons why.
First, while there is some opportunity in our lives to earn more money, Becker says, “I don’t think most people have the time or the space in their life to make that the never-ending strategy, right? I mean, we all have limited time and energy and we can certainly do some things different and rearrange our lives to make more money, but eventually that strategy reaches an end point where we have to spend less.”
The second reason, he says, is that what usually happens when people make more money is they just spend more money. They’re not able to get ahead financially unless they’re also making changes to spend less while earning more.
And owning less, he adds, actually creates a bigger opportunity to live more.
“Owning less frees up money. It frees up time. It frees up energy. It frees up calm. It results in less and less stress and less worry. And so what it does is it frees up our lives to pursue our greatest passions,” Becker says. “Owning as much stuff as possible is nobody’s greatest passion. It’s just what society tells us we’re supposed to do, and so people do it without even realizing they’ve sacrificed their passions along the way. By owning less, we are freed up to live more, to live whatever life it is that we wish we were living instead.”
Examples Becker gives in the book range from travelling around the world, to volunteering time at a nonprofit whose cause is important to you, to spending less time in the office and more time with your kids.
And speaking of kids — Becker says when it comes to minimizing, in his experience, kids are pretty flexible. “People tend to be very scared of ‘my kids are going to fight against this.’ I didn’t find that to be the case, and I don’t think I am unique in that situation.”
He does note that he and his wife did not start the process with their kids’ possessions; they tackled their own stuff first and had conversations along the way explaining why they were doing what they were doing.
“I think having those conversations in ways that kids can understand and [learn] what they are going to get out of it will resonate with them,” he says.
There’s only one potential exception, Becker says, and that’s if you’re dealing with older teenagers. If a 16-year-old has lived her whole life one way, that child can be more set in who she is, and change can be more difficult.
Of course, minimizing can challenge adults too. It’s the emotional side that tends to scare people off, Becker says. “It can be very difficult to get rid of specific items or specific categories of things and people tend to stop when it becomes emotional and difficult.”
But, he says, that’s not the time to stop. “Those difficult questions are questions that we need to be asking ourselves regardless. ‘Why did I buy so much stuff? Why did I waste so much money on these things? Why is this so difficult for me to get rid of?’ In those questions we learn things about ourselves. And maybe we find that our motivations are healthy, but maybe we find our motivations are unhealthy,” Becker says.
“I just think that the greatest fault is when we shy away from those questions,” he adds, “and the greatest benefit is when we sit in them a little while and try to try to uncover more. Learning more about ourselves is always a valuable process.”
If you want to get started in minimizing (and question-asking), Becker suggests three ways to kick off the process:
- Sit down and finish this sentence: I want to own less so that I can do more of ____. “That moves ‘I want to minimize in the new year’ from ‘I want to minimize’ into ‘I wish I was doing more of this with my life.’ It gets to the deeper motivation,” he says.
- Minimize something easy, such as your car. This can be “a quick win,” Becker says. “You can usually get rid of everything in 10 or 15 minutes and yet quickly notice how different it makes you feel.” Don’t own a car? Choose a living room or a single space in your home where you feel you can find fast success.
- Research local charities that align with something you’re passionate about. Maybe there’s a domestic violence survivors’ shelter or an organization that is helping refugees resettle in your city that could use the items you’re getting rid of. It’s a way to open your eyes to some of the needs of your local community. Once you see how much good your excess can be doing in the world right now, Becker says, it will inspire and encourage you even more while going through the minimizing process.
If you’re looking for more suggestions, you can buy the book — which is now available again.
More by Kirsten Akens:
- Beyond Capsule Closeting: How and Why to Try a Style Challenge
- Finding Order and Meaning in Your Life Through Bullet Journaling
- Daniel Pink on the Science of Good Timing
- Secondhand Clothes from a Personal Stylist: I Tried ThredUP’s ‘Goody Box’ Service
The post Paring Back: The Power of Minimalism to Tidy Up Your Home and Your Finances appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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