الاثنين، 11 فبراير 2019
Questions About HELOCs, Vegetables, Old Papers, Scams, and More!
What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Is HELOC the best option?
2. UTMA and UGMA
3. Second job or career advancement?
4. Buying scissors
5. Fresh vegetables and grocery shopping
6. Financially responsible television?
7. Disposing of old financial papers
8. Realities of job applications
9. “Financial independence” scam?
10. Physical tracking of Triggers questions
11. Thoughts on secular Buddhism
12. Financial advisor
One of the strangest things about exercise, at least to me, occurs when you work a muscle that hasn’t really been worked in a while. You’ll finish and you’ll feel fine for the rest of the day, but then tomorrow you’re really sore in a bizarre place in your body and, often, you’re even more sore the following day.
I spent most of this weekend walking around with my arms in an awkward position because it hurt to swing them as I normally do when I walk. It was uncomfortable, but it was a reminder that I had worked hard and improved myself.
I think this is true of any meaningful improvement in your life. Yes, it will probably hurt a little. Yes, it might leave you feeling a little sore in some way or another.
The question is what you take away from that soreness. Is it a sign that you’re on a good path? Or is it something to be avoided?
On with the questions.
Q1: Is HELOC the best option?
I live in one of the most expensive areas in the country, in Northern California. My husband and I have an almost-4 year old, and now our second baby due in August. Moving out of the area is not an option for a number of reasons, most importantly that we want our kids raised near family, all of which live in this immediate area. We both have full-time jobs that pay decently well, and are trying hard to eliminate any non-essential expenses. However, just the cost of the mortgage on our small condo, childcare for two kids, and health insurance will be more than we’re earning. So, we need a way to pay the bills until both kids are in public school, at which time we’ll again be earning more than we’re spending. Our home has accrued a decent amount of equity since we purchased it two years ago, so our mortgage consultant recommended a Home Equity Line of Credit. What are your thoughts, though? Would any other type of loan be a better option for us?
– Julia
Without a fuller picture of your financial state, I can’t guarantee you don’t have other options. However, a HELOC is probably the best option available to you with a reasonable interest rate attached to it.
I’m sure you’re aware of the core problem with this situation: you are riding a financial and professional tightrope. If anything happens to either of your jobs, you are almost immediately falling into a seriously perilous financial state.
My suggestion, along with the HELOC, is to leverage your family as much as possible right now to help with this. Accept every possible family invitation you get to share a meal or for free/cheap babysitting. Ride-share with them as often as possible. More than probably any point in your life, you need to be very careful with your spending. Any situation in which you’re spending more than you earn is one that is fraught with risk.
Q2: UTMA and UGMA
My wife and I had our first son a couple weeks ago, and are trying to figure out the best savings options for him. He has started to receive some gift checks written out to his name, so we need to set up some type of bank account for him. Can you help explain the difference between at UTMA and an UGMA? He has separate 529 plans already being set-up by his grandparents, but we wanted him to have some experience with a regular bank and interstate’s that we’ll be able to teach him with once he gets old enough.
– Charlie
They’re very similar. There are two big differences between the two that really matter and which one you choose depends on which factors you care the most about.
With a UGMA, you’re restricted to paper assets – cash, stocks, bonds, insurance policies, and so on. A UTMA can hold other kinds of assets in addition – the one that most people care about is real estate.
A UTMA allows the account custodian to control the assets up to age 25 (depending on specific state rules), while UGMA accounts mature at age 18.
If you anticipate your child ever having to apply for financial aid for college, I probably wouldn’t use a UGMA or a UTMA. The FAFSA assumes that 20% of the balance of the UGMA/UTMA will be used for college education each year, whereas it only assumes that about 6% of a 529 balance will be used in that way. In other words, they’ll be able to receive more financial aid if their college savings is in a 529 rather than a UGMA/UTMA.
If you think that paying for college is fully in hand without paying for student loans, a UGMA/UTMA can be a very flexible tool that enables you to gift money to a child while still keeping a hand on the wheel until they’re reasonably mature.
Q3: Second job or career advancement?
I currently have M-F job in a research lab. On the weekends I work for my uncle’s construction company that I have worked for since I was 17. He has encouraged me to use the weekends in other ways but I always felt like I needed the money. Lately I have been wondering if I would be better off long term spending the weekends building skills, going to conferences, and building professional relationships. Short term I definitely lose income but long term? I can’t decide.
– Jameson
Your uncle sounds like a good guy, and he’s probably correct that you can be using the weekends in better ways.
If you’re in a situation where you’re financially stable and able to keep paying off any debts and saving for the future with just your M-F job and you’re pretty confident you want to be in that career for the long haul, I’d lean toward spending weekends building skills and going to conferences and building relationships and such. Take it seriously, though; don’t fall into a rut of using that time for idle things. (There’s nothing wrong with thoughtful leisure, though.)
If you’re not sure what you want to do, then I’d keep the construction job and give some serious thought to your future while getting rid of debt just a little faster.
In either case, I’d loop your uncle into the decision and use him as a mentor. Not only does he seem like a sharp guy, you may want to keep that door open for the future in case things go awry and you need to go back to construction work.
Q4: Buying scissors
Whenever I buy a pair of scissors they always seem like they get so dull they can’t even cut through paper after like 20 uses. Where can I get a decent pair of scissors that aren’t junk in three months?
– Bonnie
Rather than just buying new scissors all the time, just sharpen the ones you have. It’s not a hard process.
Get some coarse sandpaper at the store and then cut through a sheet several times with the sand side down. Then, take a piece of aluminum foil, fold it in half four times so it’s 16 layers thick, then cut through it several times with the scissors. Then, take a piece of steel wool and cut through it several times with the scissors. Your scissors will be sharp after doing that, probably sharper than when you bought them.
You just need to do that every several months or whenever you notice the scissors getting dull. Even super cheap scissors will be quite good if you do this.
Q5: Fresh vegetables and grocery shopping
How do you balance trying to not go shopping as much with buying fresh vegetables and fruits? On the one hand frugal advice is to minimize your trips to the grocery store but on the other hand healthy fruits and vegetables can go bad so quickly.
– Macey
I can’t speak for everyone, but here’s what we do.
First, if something requires genuinely fresh ingredients, we make those meals within a few days of our grocery store visit. They become a priority.
Second, we treat flash frozen vegetables and fruits as being the equivalent of fresh for most purposes. We buy quite a lot of frozen vegetables and fruit.
Third, we often do a lot of meal prep, meaning that our fresh vegetables and sometimes fruits make it quickly into meals that are popped in the freezer. I’ll buy a ton of fresh spinach, for example, but a lot of it will go into four pans of frozen lasagna.
Fourth, a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables don’t go bad all that quickly. Most root vegetables last and last. Many fruits last for a long time, too.
Finally, we store some of the most perishable stuff in the fridge, following directions on how to best store them to maximize life. If we can stretch something that should only last a few days into lasting for a week, that’s a big win.
Those steps enable us to buy a ton of fruits and vegetables without them going bad. If we notice something starting to become overripe, to the point where we don’t want to use it but it’s not quite inedible, we’ll throw it in the freezer and use it for making stock or for making fruit bread in the near future.
Q6: Financially responsible television?
It seems like everything on television outside of a few hokey reality shows is centered around people living way beyond their means or else rich people. Everyone is just spending tons of money and living in fabulous houses and buying tons of stuff. I never really noticed this until you pointed it out. It’s such a strong subtle nudge to do the same. What can a person watch that isn’t about spending money?
– Mary
I completely agree. Depicting expensive lifestyles on television seems to be the norm everywhere, and knowing the the median American household income is around $60,000, the truth is that most Americans can’t live like that.
It either becomes something to try to emulate, which is a road to financial ruin, or something to try to ignore, which is hard, or else you’re watching shows that revel in values that run in opposition to your own.
To tell the truth, I don’t watch much television at all any more. What I do watch is generally fantasy or sci-fi or documentaries. I mostly read or play tabletop games instead of turning on the television.
Q7: Disposing of old financial papers
I’m following standard advice and keeping old papers for seven years, but what do you do with them after that? The advice seems to be to shred them but the idea of shredding a box of papers seems like a lot of work with a home shredder where you have to unfold everything and it only takes a few sheets at a time.
– Maxwell
One thing you can do is see if there’s a community paper shredding day or one sponsored by your bank. They’ll bring in a HUGE industrial shredder that can shred your whole box of documents in a few seconds – you literally toss things in there by the fistful and they get utterly decimated by the blades.
Another option is to burn them. Just go camping, use those documents for kindling, and then toss them in there while you’re getting a few logs burning.
One of my friends likes to rip them up by hand, then put them in a big tub of water so that they turn into this giant paper pulp chunk, then he dries that out, then he takes that big paper pulp brick on his camping trips and breaks off pieces for kindling.
Q8: Realities of job applications
I am a hiring officer for a Fortune 500 company. There are some popular misconceptions floating around about getting a job at a large corporation. I hope you will be able to share this with your readers.
You’ll often see media reports that open jobs get hundreds and hundreds of applications for a single job. That is true but it is not the whole story. What actually happens is that if we list a job opening, we will get 500 or so applications, but 480 of them are garbage and irrelevant. Probably 400 of those applications don’t meet any of the requirements for the job. Another 60 or so only meet one or two of the requirements. Another 20 might be viable for the job but they’ve presented themselves so poorly that we can easily disqualify them. This covers things like resumes with several misspellings or cover letters that use offensive language. That leaves 20 people that are legitimate candidates.
Do not be intimidated out of applying for a job that you’re completely or even mostly qualified for. Just put in enough effort to submit an accurate resume without spelling or grammar errors and a respectful cover letter that actually addresses this specific position. That’s probably enough for you to make it through the cut of 480 applicants to the final 20. It doesn’t mean you’ll make the next cut, but you’ll be in that discussion.
– Mark
This is really good advice and it’s something I’ve told many people applying for jobs.
Make sure your resume is well edited and matches the job you’re applying for and also make sure your cover letter actually addresses the position in question. That’s usually enough to make the first big cut because the vast majority of applications don’t even make that threshold.
Remember, many job applications are just tossed out there like email spam, just sent to anything even vaguely close. Many other people don’t have any idea how to present themselves as someone you might ever want to hire. If you can beat those thresholds, you’ll probably find some success.
Yes, some jobs are filled internally and some others are filled thanks to personal recommendations, but there are many that are filled via open job searches. Don’t give up.
Q9: “Financial independence” scam?
I was at a store in town minding my own business when this guy in a suit comes up to me and starts chatting. I knew him vaguely as I had seen him a time or two before. He eventually starts talking about “financial independence” and at first I thought he was talking about financial responsibility but then he really wanted to meet me for coffee to talk about it and gave me a business card. Is there a “financial independence” scam out there? What was going on?
– Tim
This seems way off to me and I wouldn’t follow up with it.
There’s a very high likelihood that this individual is involved with a network marketing or a multi-level marketing business – think Amway or something like that. Part of the “pitch” to many people centers around the idea of being financially independent because you “run your own business,” when you’re mostly just trying to sell unwanted stuff to family members.
I would in general be wary of a person I barely knew coming up to me, striking up a conversation about something like my finances, and then trying to get me to go get coffee with them. I’d simply decline the offer and walk away. If I ever did end up accepting an invite and then someone started mentioning anything like that, I’d politely get out of there as fast as possible.
Q10: Physical tracking of Triggers questions
As per your recommendation from late last year I read the book Triggers in January and am excited to dig into these questions. I spent some time thinking about some personal behaviors I wanted to develop and curb and came up with a list of 12 questions to ask myself each day.
How do you physically do these twelve questions and record the answers? Could you walk me step by step through exactly what you do?
– Marie
I use a grid-paper notebook (this one, to be specific, though any grid paper notebook would do just fine) and a black pen. I devote a two page layout per month to this.
On the left page, I write out the questions I want to answer as a numbered list. So, it might look something like this:
1. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my oldest son?
2. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my youngest son?
3. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my daughter?
4. Did I do my best today to build a lasting and loving marriage?
5. Did I do my best today to create and write meaningful material for my readers?
[…]
My current list of questions for this month numbers 22. It varies month to month. At the end of each month, I give some careful thought to what I want to work on in the next month, and that might mean deleting some questions and adding others.
At the start of each day, I review the questions for that month and think about each one for a bit. I try to visualize what I can do today to make that habit happen.
On the other page, I simply have a big grid. Each row is simply numbered with the number of the question – 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. Each column is a date – 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on.
At the end of each day, I score each question from 0 to 10 based on how I felt about my effort for the day, not the results. So, if I sat down with my daughter and had a really good conversation with her and then later on also did something fun with her, I’d probably score that an 8 or a 9. Some people find it hard to give an exact number here, but I just trust my gut on it. I find it hard to give myself a 10 – I do occasionally, but not very often. (The individual numbers are fairly arbitrary – just find a system that is meaningful that works for you.)
I record that number in the square where the row for that question and the column for that date intersect.
Then, at the bottom of each column, I average the day’s scores. For me, a day where I have an average of a 7 or above is a pretty good day (and I usually know it – it has felt like a good day). Anything below a 5 average is usually a bad day unless something really unusual and disruptive has happened (and I usually know that, too).
At the end of a month, I will average all of the scores for that month. Questions with an average score of an 8 or above are usually removed as I view that as something I’ve firmly adopted and am doing well. Questions with an average score of 4 or below are often removed, too, as it’s obviously not something I’m committed to – sometimes it comes back as a refactored question. The other questions usually stick around unless I decide I need a priority change.
The whole point of this is to keep new habits and behaviors in the front of my mind all the time and to really keep an eye on my efforts to improve those behaviors. It really seems to work when I take it seriously. However, it’s worth noting that you won’t see giant transformative life effects from changing a few behaviors. It takes time for those to build up in your life. It’s like a quarter of a degree difference in an airplane flight – it only seems like a big change after a lot of time.
Q11: Thoughts on secular Buddhism
I can’t believe you would share information about Buddhism. I thought you were a Christian. Disappointed.
– Amy
I don’t see them being in much conflict at all. I find far more conflict with Christianity in many of the articles I write on strict financial issues than I do in secular Buddhism.
Buddhism has absolutely no reference to a singular, personified deity like the Abrahamic God. None. As far as I can tell, Buddhism basically puts the idea of a deity into an area of “beyond human understanding” and really doesn’t worry about things in that category. I would describe Buddhism as non-theist.
My understanding is that Buddhism is basically a set of tools to make your own character and values stronger, which is literally how the Dalai Lama describes it. The tools that Buddhism provides can strengthen one’s Christian beliefs, or whatever beliefs they might have. To me, it’s little different than reading about any school of philosophy and using what it can teach in one’s life.
If you want to dig into this more, I suggest this article.
Q12: Financial advisor
Do you use a financial advisor? Why or why not?
– Jerry
I do not use a financial advisor.
Sarah and I met with one once, partially because I wanted to actually interact with one and also partially because we hoped that a financial advisor could address or at least reaffirm our answers to a few financial questions we had. I felt like the advisor was not explaining anything to me that I didn’t already understand from reading a few good books on investing and he was also trying really hard to sell me on products that did not seem like good investment options to me. This was a fee-based advisor; he wasn’t even getting a commission from this sale. We just ended up trusting our own research and did things on our own.
I would far rather spend several hours reading up on a financial topic and understanding it myself than paying a financial advisor to explain it and recommend options that I may or may not even want. I’m going to end up making a lot of money from that invested time.
Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.
The post Questions About HELOCs, Vegetables, Old Papers, Scams, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2RVsdqP
Best Form Plugin WordPress – (Review Updated For Winter of 2019)
How can your website visitors contact you?
It’s a simple question, yet I see so many sites with complex solutions.
Take a moment to put yourself into the shoes of a user navigating your website. For one reason or another, they have decided they want to reach you. This person shouldn’t be forced to find your phone number, dial, wait on hold, and potentially get a voicemail depending on your business hours. That’s just too many steps and not very efficient.
Here’s another scenario. The visitor has to look up your email address, navigate to their email platform, then copy and paste your email address before typing a message.
I’ll give you one more example, just for good measure. In order to contact you, the website visitor has to search you on social media, and then send a direct message or leave a comment on your page.
Should you have options for people to contact you via phone, email, and social media? Absolutely.
But you can simplify this process by allowing people to contact you directly from your website. The solution: contact forms.
A simple contact form can help you increase conversions and improve your customer experience. Each additional step a visitor has to take to perform an action reduces the chances that they’ll complete that action.
By setting up a contact form on your website, people can reach you without having to take extra steps or navigating to third-party platforms. There’s a high likelihood that they won’t finish a multi-step process. They might get distracted, or give up — it’s not worth all that work to them.
Adding a form plugin to your WordPress site will make it much easier for visitors to get in contact with you. You can also use these plugins for other forms.
So what’s the best form plugin for WordPress? I’ve identified the top options worth consideration.
1. Ninja Forms
When it comes to simplicity, the Ninja Forms plugin is definitely toward the top of the rankings. Unlike other plugins on the market, Ninja Forms integrates nicely into your WordPress dashboard and makes it easy for you to create a form in minutes.
Ninja Forms is great for beginners but has enough add-on options for advanced WordPress users as well. That’s why more than one million sites are actively using this plugin.
You can sync the forms up with your email marketing software. So all of the responses can be managed through services that you’re already using. Ninja Forms supports the majority of the most popular email tools:
- Constant Contact
- MailChimp
- Aweber
- Campaign Monitor
- iContact
- GetResponse
Ninja Forms even has features that allow you to collect payments through Stripe, PayPal Express, and Elavon.
Another reason why this is one of the best form plugins for WordPress is the ability to collect, export, and analyze any data submitted in the forms. Ninja Forms integrates with CRM software such as Salesforce, Zoho, and Batchbook. You can also send data to productivity and team tools like Trello, Slack, and Zapier.
The basic version of Ninja Forms is free, but add-ons can be purchased separately. They also have plans starting at $99 per year.
2. WPForms
WPForms is arguably one of the most beginner-friendly form plugins available for WordPress. That’s because it offers a drag and drop form builder that’s as straightforward as it gets.
The simplicity behind the drag and drop builder makes it easy for anyone, regardless of their technical background, to create a form in just a few minutes. WPForms also has plenty of pre-built templates to get you started in the right direction.
You can create forms with conditional logic. This means that certain elements of the form (such as fields, sections or buttons) will be changed based on options a user selects.
For example, a website visitor who is filling out a form about a previous purchase could have different form options than someone who has a question about one of your products that hasn’t been purchased yet.
WPForms also lets website visitors submit files. Let’s say someone has a problem with something they bought from you. You can give them an option to upload a picture to improve the communication about the issue.
This plugin can also integrate with email marketing software as well as productivity tools.
WPForms can be embedded anywhere on your website.
Pricing for WPForms starts at just $39 per year, which is pretty affordable considering all of the benefits you’ll get.
3. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms offers a clean navigation for building and managing forms on WordPress. You can consider using this plugin if you’re a beginner, but Gravity Forms offers lots of options for advanced WordPress users as well.
Other form plugins require you to add on the conditional logic feature, but that option comes standard with Gravity Forms.
Another feature I like is the ability for visitors to save and continue a form for later. This is great for those of you who plan on adding longer or more complex forms to your website. Sometimes those won’t be completed in one sitting, and you don’t want to force people to re-submit information or abandon the process altogether.
Gravity Forms lets you limit the number of submissions through one particular form. They also give you the ability to schedule forms.
Something else that sets this plugin apart from the competition is its calculations feature. Gravity Forms can automatically perform advanced calculations based on the form fields submitted by a visitor. So if you had a real estate website, you could set this up to calculate an estimated mortgage payment based on things like the purchase price, down payment, interest rate, and mortgage period.
Gravity Forms starts at just $59 per year for a basic license. If you’re a developer or have an agency, you can purchase an elite license for just $259 annually, which is valid for an unlimited number of sites.
4. HappyForms
A reason why HappyForms is considered one of the best form plugins for WordPress is because it’s 100% free.
According to its website, the average cost of a WordPress form plugin is $186 per year. So for those of you who are looking for a free form plugin, this will be a top choice for you to consider.
HappyForms lets you completely customize your forms with different types of form fields.
- Short text
- Long text
- Website links
- Multiple choice options
- Single choice
- Dropdown menus
- Numeric fields
- Phone numbers
All of these can be added to one form. The drop-down menus and multiple choice options are very user-friendly. It’s easier for someone to make a selection from a list as opposed to manually typing a response. This will also help you stay organized when you’re sorting through data and submissions from these fields.
It’s easy for you to manage all of your messages from one place. HappyForms lets you filter the messages based on your preferences, so you can respond in a logical way. For example, you may prioritize a certain type of request over another, as opposed to responding in the order the forms were submitted in.
HappyForms also has ReCaptcha and Honeypot built-in, so you won’t have to worry about getting spam messages.
Overall, this is one of the best free form plugins for WordPress on the market.
5. Caldera Forms
Caldera Forms also has a free option. If you want to upgrade to a pro version, pricing starts at $15 per month. They also have individual add-ons available for purchase.
With that said, if you’re just looking for a basic form plugin, you can probably get away with the free version.
This plugin is another option that includes a drag and drop builder, which is great for those of you who aren’t too tech-savvy and want to create forms as fast as possible.
Caldera Forms has advanced calculations, drop down menus, and conditional logic. There’s also a built-in spam filtering tool, so you won’t have to waste your time reviewing spam submissions.
I dig the auto-responders, which ensures that your website visitors always get a quick reply.
For those of you who run a blog and accept guest posts, users can submit posts directly through the form fields with Caldera Forms, too.
6. FormCraft
FormCraft is unique because it specializes in designs. We’ve all been to websites that have generic forms that just aren’t very appealing. You don’t want your website visitors to have that feeling when they’re on your site.
This WordPress plugin also has a drag and drop builder, making it easier for anyone to create a from as fast as possible.
FormCraft also has a wide range of templates based on the type of form that you’re trying to build. This is very helpful for those of you who will be embedding multiple forms on your WordPress site. For example, a form to sign up for your email newsletter should be distinguishable from your contact form.
Another top benefit from FormCraft is its popup forms. A user action can trigger a form to appear on the page, as opposed to embedding it somewhere on a landing page that might be overlooked.
You can create multi-page forms with FormCraft as well, although this is one of the many paid add-on features. The basic package starts at $49 per year. Add-ons range from $19 to $29 each.
7. Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is another WordPress plugin that’s completely free. They won’t try to upsell you with any premium features or add-ons. With over 5 million active installations, this is one of the most popular free WordPress plugins you’ll find.
What I found interesting about Contact Form 7 is that they have exceptional customer support for a free plugin. You’ll have access to an extensive FAQ page, support forums, and documents explaining how to do things.
Some of the top features of Contact Form 7 include:
- CAPTCHA fields
- Radio buttons
- Drop down menus
- Checkboxes
- Quizzes
- File submission fields
You’ll be able to embed the forms anywhere on your website. It’s a top option for anyone who doesn’t want to buy a form plugin.
8. weForms
I like weForms because it’s extremely sleek and responsive. It has a drag and drop builder, which makes it easy for beginners to create a form. There are also tons of pre-built templates that will save you time compared to creating a form from scratch.
The shortcode allows you to embed forms within your posts, as well as anywhere else on your site. With weForms, you can build forms that have entry and time restrictions and over 33 types of form fields for you to choose.
The versatility of weForms makes it one of the best form plugins for WordPress.
It syncs with some of the most popular email marketing solutions on the market. It provides anti-spam protection, and let you create forms with conditional logic. In addition to contact forms, it’s great for:
- Volunteer application forms
- Event registration forms
- Error reporting forms
- Applications
- Referrals
- Internal company requests
- Patient intake forms
9. Quform
At just $29 per year, Quform is an affordable WordPress form plugin. This plugin is extremely responsive and mobile-friendly.
You’ll have the option to create multi-page forms, with complex layouts, and reCAPTCHA with the drag and drop builder.
The plugin comes with lots of different form themes as well. You can set up conditions that will automatically display elements for specific replies through your website forms. With Quform, users can attach files to their submission.
For those of who you don’t want to spend a ton of money on a plugin, but want to upgrade from a free WordPress form plugin, you’ll definitely want to checkout Quform.
10. Formidable Forms
Last, but certainly not least on our list is Formidable Forms.
This plugin is unique because it lets you create forms that are GDPR compliant. So for those of you who have lots of European visitors navigating to your website, you’ll want to consider Formidable Forms.
You can create simple contact forms as well as complex multi-page forms with this plugin. It comes standard with top features like advanced calculations, file uploads, and conditional logic.
Formidable Forms is also one of my favorite plugins for analyzing data that’s been submitted in your website forms. You can view information in graphs, which is always helpful for identifying trends.
This plugin lets you take the information that you collect through forms and use it to build directories, listings, or any other data-driven application.
The drag-and-drop builder paired with front-end WordPress editing makes Formidable Forms impressive. Pricing ranges from $49 to $399 per year, depending on your needs. But I’d say the majority of you won’t need one of the higher-cost plans.
Conclusion
Traditionally, website forms are used as a contact method. It’s a great way for your website visitors to reach you directly without having to leave or site or go through extra steps.
But as you can see, these forms can be used for so much more. That’s why it’s crucial for you to have a WordPress plugin that can help you create the forms you need.
So what’s the best form plugin for WordPress?
It depends on what you’re looking for. Some websites need to build complex, multi-page forms, with conditional logic and file submissions. Other sites may just need a simple form with a few fields.
How do you want to create your forms? If you want something that’s easy and user-friendly, you’ll want to look for a plugin that has drag and drop builders.
Price is also something that you need to keep in mind when you’re searching for a form plugin. Some are free, while others vary in price range depending on features, plans, and add-ons.
Based on all of this information, I’m sure you can find what you’re looking for on the list that I’ve come up with above. These are the best form plugins for WordPress, and I made sure to include something for everyone.
Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2WOHM7c