Sponsored by Wix “Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.” – Paul Rand It's hard to oversell the importance of a well-designed and user-friendly website. Chances are that you have entered a website that was lacking any semblance of design, and it immediately turned you off from learning more about the site and what […]
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Tax season is here, and though you technically have until April 15 to file your returns, you might want to submit yours sooner than that — at least if you want to avoid potential identity theft (and a whole lot of hassle).
Tax-related identity theft is a growing problem in America, and the more security breaches, information hacks and digital business we do as a society, the more consumers who fall victim to it. In fact, in 2016 alone, thieves stole more than $21 billion in tax refunds as a result of this simple, yet clever, form of identity theft.
Have you fallen victim to Tax ID Theft and need help dealing with the financial ramifications? Or just want to know ways to prevent it from happening to you? This guide can help.
Tax identity theft occurs when someone files a tax return using your Social Security Number. In some cases, thieves do this in order to claim a fraudulent tax refund. In others, they may have used your SSN to obtain employment. When this occurs, their employer will report all income to the IRS using that SSN. When you don’t report that same income on your own return, the IRS will flag it as suspicious and require you to pay taxes on that additional income. It may even lead to a tax audit.
Victims of tax-related identity theft face serious financial ramifications. Not only are they unable to file their own returns (or claim their tax refund), but it also may indicate other financial vulnerabilities are at work. Unauthorized loans, credit cards and other accounts may have been opened using the victim’s identity. Victims are typically encouraged to freeze their credit when tax-related identity theft occurs. They may also need to work with creditors and credit reporting agencies to clear their name of any fraudulent activity.
Generally, tax-related identity theft — and all identity theft, for that matter — occurs after a person’s sensitive information has become public or fallen into the wrong hands. This often happens due to security breaches or digital data hacks, like the recent ones involving mortgage data, Quora users and Marriott/Starwood Hotels customers.
Tax-related identity theft often occurs in February and early March, as thieves must file the fraudulent returns before the real taxpayers file their legitimate ones. Fortunately, the IRS is taking steps to reduce identity theft from many angles. The agency has hired more employees dedicated to stopping fraud, implemented additional safeguards and also changed many of the standards used to file and authorize returns. Despite these efforts, tax-related identity fraud does still occur — and it’s important everyday Americans are ready should it happen.
If you’ve fallen victim to tax-related identity theft, there are several ways you might learn of it. First, your legitimate tax return may be rejected. When you go to e-file your tax return, the IRS will reject it if a return has already been filed for your Social Security Number. If you filed a paper return, you would get a rejection notice in the mail, alerting you that your return has already been filed.
In the event the thief used your SSN to obtain a job, you likely won’t learn of the issue until your returns have been filed and processed. Once the IRS sees that your reported income does not match the income reported by employers to your Social Security Number, they will send you a later saying you failed to report income or that you owe additional taxes.
It’s important to note that all communications from the IRS will come via mail. The agency will not call, text or email you regarding your returns or any suspicious activity. Do not provide sensitive information to anyone pretending to be an IRS agent via these methods and report the issue to the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
If you discover that you are the victim of tax identity theft, you’ll need to report it to both the IRS and the Federal Trade Commission.
Specifically, you’ll need to:
If you tried to e-file and got rejected, you should go ahead and file your paper return and pay any taxes you owe via mail. If at any point you need help in the process, call the IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit at 800.908.4490 for assistance. An agent can walk you through the appropriate steps to both report and respond to the theft.
Though the IRS says it typically takes 120 days or less to address cases of identity theft, according to USA Today, it often takes as many as 278 days to resolve a claim and get your legitimate refund.
This doesn’t even include the time and resources needed to address other consequences of identity theft — such as unauthorized loans, credit cards, purchases and more. Depending on how deep the theft goes and how available your personal information was, the financial ramifications can often last months or even years.
The important thing to do is to remain vigilant. This means:
In some cases, you may want to involve a lawyer — especially if your investments, retirement accounts, mortgage or other major financial products have been affected. They can help you traverse the legal issues that crop up with creditors, lenders and financial institutions along the way.
Many victims of tax-related identity theft experience cash flow issues or must deal with additional debt as a result of the experience. They also may be unable to take out traditional loans or credit accounts due to the impact the theft has had on their credit score and profile.
When this occurs, victims have these options:
There’s always the option to wait it out, too. If the damage was minimal or you weren’t relying on your refund for financial stability, you may be able to await the IRS’ resolution of your case.
If you aren’t already the victim of tax-related identity theft, you should take action to ensure you never become one. This means protecting your personal information, shredding sensitive documents and using strong passwords on all online accounts.
You can also:
You should also file your returns as early as possible. A fraudster cannot file a return using your Social Security Number if one has already been filed. Make it a point to file your taxes as soon as you have the information necessary to do so.
The post Tax Identity Theft: Protecting Your Credit and Finances appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
I remember the first site I ever worked on — a blog I built in college.
After getting the site live, I heard I needed Google Analytics so I set it up.
A few days went by. Nothing really happened.
Then… all of sudden… I received my first visitor! Holy cow, someone actually looked at something I built! A complete stranger!
Turns out, it was a false alarm. Google Analytics recorded one of the visits I made to my own site. I felt a little silly after I realized that.
But a few days later, I did start receiving real traffic. I’ll never forget the feeling that came from having built something other people cared about. I quickly started a daily ritual of checking Google Analytics every morning during breakfast.
Watching traffic come to your site is downright addicting.
Google Analytics tells you how many people are coming to your site, where they’re coming from, and what they look at while they’re on your site.
All for free.
That’s right, it’s completely free. Google built a ridiculously high-quality piece of software and makes it available to everyone. There aren’t any catches or downsides either.
Well, maybe there is one downside.
Google Analytics can get complicated. It has a ton of depth, countless reports, and a bunch of advanced features for expert marketers.
But we can skip all that.
Even if you never use the advanced stuff in Google Analytics, there’s a ton of value in a few basic reports. It’s also really easy to set up. Once you create your account and install Google Analytics on your site, you’ll get the majority of its value right out of the box without having to do any fancy customization.
There are three basic steps: getting your tracking code, installing that code on your site, and confirming that it’s all working. Let’s go through each.
Again, Google Analytics is completely free and anyone can set up an account.
I’m going to walk you through the process of creating your account, setting up a few basic things in Google Analytics, and show you where to find your Google Analytics tracking code (the Global Site Tag).
First, go to this URL.
Google will ask you to sign into a Google Account. If you have a Gmail or G Suite account, that’ll get you in. If not, you can create a Google Account easily.
Once you’ve started the Google Analytics sign up process, Google will ask for some basic info about your site.
Right after you finish creating your account, you’ll be taken to your Google Analytics tracking code:
The Global Site Tag is what you’re looking for. That’s the code that will run all the tracking stuff on your site as soon as it’s installed.
Also take note of the Tracking ID. Some website builders or WordPress plugins will send data to Google Analytics for you once they have your tracking ID. If you’re asked for the Tracking ID, you now know where to find it.
There’s nothing else you need to configure in your account at this point, you’re ready to move on to the next step.
Now that you have your Google Analytics tracking code, it’s time to get it on your site.
At a high level, the install is simple. Your Google Analytics Global Site Tag needs to fire on every page of your website when the page loads. As the page loads, it records data from that visitor and then sends it to your Google Analytics account and appears in your reports.
There are a couple of ways to get installed on all your site pages. The way you’ll use depends on how your site is built.
For WordPress, there are a couple of ways to install Google Analytics.
The absolute easiest way is to install a Google Analytics plugin on your WordPress site. I’ve listed all of my favorite Google Analytics plugins here.
After you install the plugin, go to the plugin settings and look for the place to add your Tracking ID.
Another option is to check your WordPress theme settings. A lot of WordPress themes have the option to add header scripts. This is a place for you to copy and paste any code snippet into the header of your site. Those code snippet will load on every page. It’s in easy way to install marketing tools like Google Analytics on your site. If your WordPress theme has this option, copy and paste your Google Analytics Global Site Tag into that box. Then you’re done.
This is the way that I usually prefer to install Google Analytics. It’s super easy and it allows me to keep the total number of WordPress plugins down.
If you have trouble finding this setting or your theme doesn’t have it, the plugin option is still a great way to go.
If you are using an ecommerce tool to run your site, dig around in your site settings. Most of the ecommerce site tools have integrations with Google Analytics.
Usually, they just need to know your Tracking ID and you’ll start seeing data in your reports.
Shopify does ask that you copy and paste your tracking code into its settings. This article also breaks down a few more steps to verify that your Shopify theme is using Google Analytics. Shopify is our recommended ecommerce platform and you should switch to Shopify if you’re not on it already.
Most site builders like Squarespace and Wix have Google Analytics integrations. Search your site settings for a way to add your Tracking ID or copy your Global Site Tag into your site.
If you’ve built your site by hand, you could install Google Analytics yourself. Your goal is to copy and paste your Global Site Tag into the <head> section on every page of your site. If you’re not sure how to do this, reach out to a developer to help you install it.
Short answer: don’t worry about it. Install Google Analytics without it.
Tag managers became popular to help teams manage their websites. For a growing business, managing all the scripts on different website becomes a real headache. There are dozens of marketing and engineering scripts along with countless sites and subdomains to manage. It’s pretty easy for scripts to get out of hand.
Tag managers came around to manage… well… tags (scripts). Instead of installing scripts directly on your site, you install a single tag manager. Then you put all your scripts in your tag manager. Your tag manager loads the scripts every time someone comes to your site.
There are several major advantages to this:
Google released its own Google Tag Manager a while back and it quickly became the industry standard.
If you’re part of a larger company, you should install all your marketing tool scripts with Google Tag Manager, including Google Analytics. It’ll prevent a bunch of fires later.
However, most site owners aren’t working at a large company. They’re building their own site or running a small business. If that’s you, I recommend you skip Google Tag Manager for several reasons:
So skip it and install Google Analytics directly on your site.
The majority of data in Google Analytics only appears in your reports 24 hours after it happens. This means that if you’re looking at data for today, it’s not accurate. It takes time for Google to process all the data coming in and get it ready for your reports.
So if you install Google Analytics, visit a bunch of pages on your site, then check your Google Analytics reports right away, you might not see anything in your reports. Give it 24 hours for the data to come in.
Google Analytics does have some Real-Time reports that show you data as it’s coming in. These reports don’t have nearly as much depth as the normal reports but you don’t have to wait 24 hours to see what’s happening.
The Real-Time reports are perfect for confirming that you’ve set up Google Analytics properly.
They’re under “Real-Time” in the left sidebar. The Overview report looks like this:
A great way to make sure your Google Analytics tracking code has been installed correctly is to open up the Real-Time Overview report in one browser tab and then click through a bunch of pages on your site in another tab. If the install was done correctly, you should be able to see the pages you’re visiting pop up in the report.
Once all the data is coming in, you’re good to go. You’ve finished setting up Google Analytics and can start checking it during breakfast every morning like I do.
Interest rates on Cash Isas are gradually rising and offer a safe haven, especially for taxpayers who have gone over their personal savings allowance
Low interest rates and higher-paying alternatives mean the popularity of Cash Isas has declined in recent years.
And since the introduction of the personal savings allowance in 2016, savers have been further shunning Cash Isas.
The personal savings allowance lets basic-rate taxpayers receive £1,000 of cash interest tax free each year, while higher-rate taxpayers can earn £500 tax free. Additional-rate taxpayers don’t have this allowance.
Cash Isas have also fallen out of favour because of rock-bottom interest rates on savings.
This has led to many savers putting their cash into higher-paying savings accounts.
Despite their fall from grace, Cash Isas remain important for people looking to save tax-free above their personal allowance limit, You can save up to £20,000 each year into a Cash Isa.
Once you exceed the £1,000 personal allowance, you start paying tax on your interest so a Cash Isa is still a good bet for savers with larger pots or for higher-rate taxpayers.
As the Cash Isa does not count towards your personal savings allowance, you can use it in addition to the £1,000 you get tax free with the allowance.
Once you go over the personal savings allowance limit, the 20% tax rate on interest kicks in. This means that for every £100 interest accrued basic-rate taxpayers will only earn £80.
For higher-rate taxpayers, savings interest is taxed at 40%, meaning they can save even more by with a Cash Isa. There is also the possibility that the personal savings allowance limit could drop or even be scrapped in the future.
The good news is Cash Isa rates are on the rise again, with increased competition among providers helping to push rates up.
Data from Moneyfacts shows that the average one-year Cash Isa rate reached its highest level in January in three years to stand at 1.35% – up from 1.08% a year ago.
The average interest rate offered on easy-access Cash Isas has also risen, going up 0.21 percentage points to 0.94% in the year to January 2019.
However, savers should be careful as some high-street Cash Isas offer paltry returns with interest rates even lower than the Bank of England’s base rate of 0.75%.
This includes the Barclays Instant Cash Isa, the Santander EISA and the TSB Cash Isa Saver, which all pay 0.6%. Even lower are the Nationwide Instant Isa Saver and the Yorkshire Building Society Instant Isa, both at 0.5%.
Fortunately, you can transfer your Isa from one provider to another at any time if you are unhappy with the rate you are getting. All you have to do is contact your Isa provider and fill out an Isa transfer form. However, remember that although you won’t lose any tax benefits you could face a penalty depending on the terms of your agreement, such as if the account is a fixed rate for a specific period such as one year or two. Be careful not to withdraw your money too early if this is the case.
Be careful as some Cash Isas offer paltry interest rates as low as 0.5%
With interest rates so low, it is as important as ever to shop around to make sure your money is working as hard as possible.
Easy-access Cash Isas provide a great way of getting hold of your money whenever you want. However, easy-access rates are typically lower than fixed rates and you may find that withdrawals are limited.
The best easy-access deal currently is the Virgin Money Double Take E-Isa Issue 5 at 1.45%. However, bear in mind with this account that you are limited to two withdrawals a year. If you exceed this, the bank will slash your rate.
Alternatively, you might want to consider the Shawbrook Bank Easy Access Cash Isa, paying a rate of 1.43% to savers putting in at least £1,000. You can withdraw your cash at any time but the minimum withdrawal is £500.
Isa limits are set to remain the same in the 2019 tax year at £20,000. However, it is important to be aware that if you decide to withdraw money from your Isa, you may not be able to it add to it if you have reached your allowance. For example, if you have saved £20,000 and withdraw £1,000 you would you would have to wait for the next tax year to put another £1,000 into your Isa.
Some providers do offer flexible Isas that allow you to withdraw money and put it back into the account in the same tax year. If you do this, the money replaced won’t count towards your final allowance.
The current top rate with no withdrawal restrictions is from Paragon Bank, which is paying 1.35%.
Most providers that offer this feature only do so with their variable rate Isas. The rates are also often lower than the market leaders.
Remember, you can spread your £20,000 limit across multiples types of Isa – you don’t have to just put it all in cash. For example, you could put £10,000 in cash and £10,000 in stocks and shares.
Rates for notice accounts can be higher than those offered by instant access, but you will need to tell your bank or building society in advance that you want to withdraw money.
The Charter Savings Bank 95 Day Notice Cash Isa is currently the best notice account on the market with a rate of 1.45%. You can open an account online with £1,000 but it requires 95 days’ notice to withdraw cash.
To get the highest interest rates on offer, you will need to look at a fixed-rate account. With one of these, you must lock your money away for the whole term, usually between one and five years. Penalties are charged if you need to access your money early.
Over five years, the top rate is currently the Leeds Building Society Five Year Fixed Rate Isa at 2.12%, fixed until 1 April 2024. You can open the account online with an initial investment of £100.
The Family Building Society and Newcastle Building Society are both offering the next best rate at 2.1%.
For three years, the top rate comes from Coventry Building Society at 2.05%, which you can open with only £1.
The best two-year rate on offer is 1.9%, again from Coventry Building Society, while Charter Savings Bank pays 1.87%.
Cynergy Bank, paying 1.74%, is the top one-year fixed-rate Cash Isa. The next best rate is 1.7% from Coventry Building Society, but this is fixed until 31 May 2020.
All rates were correct on 12 February 2019, but are subject to change.
| Account | Type | Headline rate | Minimum and maximum balance | Open account | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virgin Money Double Take Cash E-Isa Issue 5 | Easy access | 1.45% | £1 upwards | Online only | Accepts transfers |
| Charter Savings Bank 95 Day Notice Cash Isa | Notice account | 1.45% | £1,000 upwards | Online only | 95 days' notice to withdraw cash |
| Cynergy Bank Fixed Rate Cash Isa | One-year fixed rate | 1.73% | £500 upwards | Online only | Withdrawals are subject to 180 days' loss of interest on the amount withdrawn |
| Coventry Building Society Fixed Rate Isa | Two-year fixed rate | 2.05% | £1 upwards | Branch, online, post | Fixed until 31 May 2021 |
| Coventry Building Society Fixed Rate Isa | Three-year fixed rate | 2.05% | £1 upwards | Branch, online, post | Fixed until 31 May 2022 |
| Leeds Building Society 5 Year Fixed Rate Cash Isa | Five-year fixed rate | 2.12% | £100 upwards | Branch, online, post | Fixed until 1 April 2024 |
You know what’s great? Having a job that allows you to use your skills, pursue your passions, and make money on your own terms.
Whether you’re a dreamer looking to build a career off your skillset or an entrepreneur searching for a new side hustle, a self-employed job can get you to your goals.
Part-time, full-time, remote, or in person, I’ve got you covered. Below is a list of the top 23 low-cost and skill-based self-employed jobs you can start earning with today.
Oh – even though these are numbered, it’s not a ranking – it’s just for easy organization.
What will determine the value of a self-employed job is whether or not it’s right for you. Take a look.
Uber has become a work-on-your-own-time sensation. Their requirements are pretty mild and you can get started right away by going to their website, filling out the online application, and getting your background check going.
You can expect to make anywhere from $13 to $25 per hour with Uber.
A lot of that variance has to do with where you live and how many Uber riders are in the area. Also, if you have a nice vehicle, you may qualify for some upgraded Uber services that charge a premium price.
There are people who spend so much time on their jobs that they have little time to perform even necessary chores, such as grocery shopping. You can make money in a business that handles that job for them.
And with the Internet, it’s pretty easy to automate that business. People can simply email or text their orders to you, then you can arrange delivery. You can even set up an online payment arrangement, such as PayPal.
Once you get large enough to have multiple customers, you could probably even combine shopping trips, by shopping for several customers at the same store and time frame. You can charge a flat fee, or one based on a percentage of the grocery order.
If you have a sturdy pickup truck or van, you may have all you need to operate services for light hauling. People need a service like this for jobs that fall short of a full-scale household move.
For example, they may need delivery of a large item that they purchased at a store. Or they may need a large item that they sold to people moved to the buyer’s home. It could even be a situation in which an adult child is moving out on their own.
With so many people working outside the home, child care is becoming a critical household need. The demand for childcare has grown now that most households feature either a single working parent or two parents both holding full-time jobs outside the home.
You can provide care for children in their own home, or you can care for the children of several families in your own home. While the second option will obviously allow you to scale up your business, it is a highly regulated business, likely to require state licensure.
If you want to take it up to the next level, you can even open up your own daycare center.
You can also opt to do it as a full-time program, an after-school only program or even seasonally to cover summer vacations and the various school vacations during the school year.
If you’re under the age of 30, you probably have a built-in advantage for a business like this. If you spend a lot of time on social media – Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, or other outlets – you may be able to find some clients who are in need of a social media consultant.
If you know how to promote events, products, and even concepts, using social media, then this can be the perfect business for you. What started out as a social game just a few years ago, is rapidly becoming important in the business community.
Social media is an important way for businesses to connect with ordinary people, without having to go through all channels. It’s also a way to market businesses, products, and services.
An entire closet industry in the video space has developed with the arrival of YouTube. If you have been creating your own videos, such as music videos, how-to videos, or just-for-fun videos, you may be able to sell your services to the general public.
Small businesses are looking for custom videos put on their websites, to broadcast through the social media, and even to include in emails. Videos provide a better way to reach prospective customers who are either primarily visual learners, or people who simply don’t have time to read a lengthy article or webpage.
Almost everybody wants to start a website of some type, but most people lack the skills to make it happen.
If you know how to build even simple websites, you can turn that into a full-fledged business.
If nothing else, you can prepare simple websites for upstart businesses that have limited budgets. But as your business grows and your skill level and your client base increases, you can begin doing more complicated websites for higher fees.
If you have an eye for design and the drive to turn it into a business, interior decorating can be a lucrative (and fun) career. Lots of people know what style they want for their home but may not have the vision or skill to bring it all together.
And if you live in a large urban area, you could use your decorating skills as a home stager for real estate agencies, removing clutter, rearranging furniture, and even adding helpful touches here and there.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, it could involve putting a tasteful amount of furniture and decorations in an unoccupied home. As an interior decorating professional, you could market your business with an online portfolio showing off your work and by encouraging clients to leave reviews for you on freelance sites
If you can put together a pretty resume, this could be a good business for you. And even if you can’t, there are online sources where you can learn how to do it quite easily. The secret is knowing how to write effective resumes for specific careers – which again, is a skill you can learn quickly.
Resumes are typically written off of templates, and when you have access to those templates – which you can often get free – all you need to do is customize the details.
The built-in advantage that you have here is most people either lack the ability to construct a coherent resume or have no desire to do so. You’d be filling a valuable niche by stepping in and doing it for them.
The Internet has opened up all kinds of opportunities to write on a freelance basis. There are millions of websites and blogs, and many of them need content to drive traffic. If you have solid writing skills and can write intelligently on several topic areas, you can quickly earn a living as a freelancer.
Beyond blogs and websites, you may also step into marketing type emails, advertising copy, and even ghostwriting ebooks. This is the kind of business venture that can start small, and grow into a six-figure income as you get better at it.
Much like freelance web design, freelance writing can be done on a remote basis. That means you can run your business completely from your own home.
Do you have a topic area that you are passionate about? If you do, you could turn that into a business by starting your own blog. Thousands of blogs come and go each year, but the ones that offer topics in information that adds value to the readers tend to stick around. And they also tend to be profitable.
The way to make money blogging comes from advertising revenue. Advertisers love to place ads on specialized blogs, and those ads generate revenue, either as one-time payments or ongoing cash flows provided by pay-per-click advertising. You can also add affiliate programs to your blog (more on that in a minute).
You can also sell your own products and services from your blog. E-books are especially popular offerings from blogs, as long as they provide valuable information your readers would be willing to pay for.
The best blogging niches are in areas like investments, credit cards, autos and auto repair, computers, real estate, travel, fashion, or even entertainment. Any topic area that is relevant to a large number of people can turn into a profit generating blog.
I recommend using a site like Bluehost for your blog. It’s simple to set up and gives you access to excellent features.
A life coach offers advice and planning in the areas of motivation, finances, social activity, and even hobbies. Your job will be to create a successful and well-balanced life for your clients.
People do pay for these services. After all, if your job is dominating your life, you might consider paying someone – an outsider – to help focus you on improving other areas of your life, including your career.
You can also create specialized niches here too. For example, you can specialize in being a life coach for people who are coming out of a divorce. Or, you can work with people who are undergoing career transitions, or even people who are new in town and are looking for connections and meaning in a strange place. You can take this self-employed job in any direction you like!
Properly executed events are expensive, which is good news if you are the one coordinating them.
If you’re a gifted communicator, have the eye for design I mentioned earlier, and are organizationally skilled, you could make money as an event coordinator.
While your mind may have immediately gone to weddings (which is a profitable line of event planning) you can craft your business around other specialties, such as parades, birthdays, graduation, political events, fashion shows, corporate events, the list goes on and on.
The success of your event coordinating, much like interior decorating, will hinge on your ability to show prospective clients what you can do. An online portfolio, social media presence, and word of mouth from former clients go a long way and can help you build your clientele in no time.
Are you comfortable speaking in front of large groups? That’s a potential business right there. And again, there’s a lot of flexibility with this type of business. You can give specialized talks to businesses and industry groups, talking about specific topics, or even just providing motivation. You can even become a pitch man for certain products.
A lot of businesses are looking at presentations as a way to market their businesses. But if business owners don’t have the ability or courage to do so, they may a hire a professional speaker to do it for them. You could be that speaker. All it takes is a few clients, and you’ll be on your way.
With millions of people now living into their 80s and 90s, and with the cost of institutional living arrangements skyrocketing, many elderly and their families are opting instead for at-home companions. It not only keeps the cost of care low, but it also enables the elderly to continue living in their own homes.
If you have patience and skill to work with the elderly directly, you can become a companion.
However, if you want to scale it up into a full-scale business, you can instead start a service that provides care providers for the elderly. As the owner of the business, you would arrange and manage the care engagements which are provided by others.
Sooner or later every business needs specific help either with an established area of the business, or in taking on an entirely new function. As a consultant, you can come in and help them do just that. The advantage is that you will be coming in as a fee based independent contractor, rather than as an employee in need of a permanent salary and benefits.
One of the best ways to do this is by offering related services. For example, if you have significant marketing experience, you can act as a marketing consultant for a retail operation, a computer software company, or an ecommerce business.
Identify your specialization, then figure out ways that you can help various businesses move forward, and you will have created a consulting niche for yourself.
If you can repair just about anything – cars, computers, furniture, appliances, or homes/buildings – you can start a repair business.
There’ll be some investment of capital needed for tools, and perhaps even a vehicle. But once you get your name and reputation established, you’ll probably have more work than you can handle.
If repair work represents a viable business idea, then mobile repair is potentially even more lucrative. If you are a person who makes house calls, you will likely be in demand in short order. In that way, you will not only be providing much-needed repairs, but they’ll be delivered directly to the customer’s door – which is made to order for today’s market.
One prominent example of this are mobile mechanics. Rather than having the customer bring their vehicle to a repair shop, the mobile mechanic instead goes to the customer’s home. It’s easy to see how this will be a valuable service for the customer whose vehicle won’t start.
This can be a natural business for you if you are at least above average in one or more academic subjects. English, science and mathematics are prime subjects for tutors. Since they are required course curriculum in virtually every school, and many students struggle with them, you can create a business out of helping kids improve in these subjects.
You can market your tutoring business just by creating a professional looking flyer, and distributing it to the local schools.
Academic courses aren’t the only subjects were tutors are in demand. If you can play an instrument, and are reasonably good at it, you can create a business teaching kids – or even adults – how to play.
A lot of people just learn better in a one-on-one environment, rather than in a classroom. You don’t have to be an accomplished musician either. If you know the basics, and you have the patience to teach them to students, this can work very well for you.
You can make a business out of teaching people how to speak English, or how to speak it better.
The market is also wide open here for tutoring the children of immigrants, who may need help with English because the family’s native language is spoken in the home. But whether you are teaching first-generation immigrants or their children, this can be a rich business opportunity.
If you have ever sold anything on eBay or related sites, this could be a business option for you. It’s simply a matter of developing low-cost product sources of items to sell. eBay even allows you to create an online store that enables you to sell your products and services on a regular basis.
As you might imagine, an eBay business is not quite as simple as many of the proponents claim. It is a business in the true sense, and that means you’ll have to provide products that offer some type of advantage over to what’s out there right now.
For example, products need to be either unique, low-cost, or have certain valuable features that make them stand out.
Competition is heavy, especially with Amazon.com slowly gobbling up the retail world. And speaking of Amazon.com, it’s another outstanding site to consider running your e-commerce business on.
If you are good at locating bargains at places like thrift stores, estate sales, garage sales, or even online, you can start a business buying and selling. The basic idea is to buy items on the cheap, and sell them at a healthy profit.
This is something like running a pawn shop in your home and online. You can sell your merchandise on websites such as eBay, Amazon.com, and Craigslist. You can also opt to sell them at garage sales from your home, or even at flea markets and swap meets.
The basic idea is to sell an item for $100 that you purchased for $10. If you have a skill like that – and some people actually do – it could turn into a lucrative business.
Are you an artist? If so, you can use online platforms to sell royalties on your work. Whether you’re a photographer, musician, author, or graphic designer, chances are there are people willing to pay to use your photos, music, books, fonts, or logos.
Shutterstock, for instance, lets you contribute images, videos, illustrations, and music, then get paid every time someone downloads your content.
You can sign up with Shutterstock today to start listing your work, creating a nice source of passive income. The more content you contribute, the more you make, so this self-employed job can be as extensive and lucrative as you decide.
Each idea on this list will cost you very little to enter, and the rewards could reach far further than you can imagine. As a send-off into this exciting new venture, I have a few tips for you:
The post 23 Self-Employed Jobs Updates appeared first on Good Financial Cents®.
This past weekend, I was cleaning out the closet in my office when I came across some of my old journals from the late 1990s and early 2000s. In that timeframe, I barely had any money at all. I had a minimum wage part-time job and was trying to work my way through college. At one point, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment with several other people and my worldly possessions fit in my backpack and a single plastic storage container.
Most of these journal entries were concerned with figuring out who I was and where I was going in life. It all centered around transitioning from childhood under my parents’ roof to adulthood on my own.
What surprised me, though, is how many of the financial principles I use in my current financially stable adult life were already in place back then. In almost every page, I see some little hint of smart spending decisions and wise financial moves.
The vast majority of those moves were very little things, but as I flipped through the pages, I often saw those very little moves slowly grow into some degree of financial momentum. Many of those little moves culminated in enabling me to keep my student loans smaller than they could have been, and that alone transitioned into an easier financial path going forward.
There’s a big financial truth: Every little tiny money move you make alters your direction a little bit, especially when you don’t have much income to begin with. It doesn’t really take much at all to start building financial momentum, even when things seem hopeless, even when you’re living in a tiny apartment with several other people and living out of a storage container and wondering if you’ll be able to eat this week.
What follows are some of the core principles I learned from reviewing those journals over the last few days. They all come from a point in my life where I was effectively living on a minimum wage part-time job, sharing an apartment with several other people, and eating about as cheaply as humanly possible to survive and try to set myself up for whatever success I could in the coming years.
The most poisonous thing you can do when trying to succeed is to blame others when you fall short. Period.
Yes, there are many instances where you can try really hard and still fall short because of things outside of your control. It happens. That’s part of life.
However, the lesson to take away from such situations is not blaming others or blaming outside forces. All that does is give you permission to not do your best.
Rather than saying, “I failed because of reason X which was outside of my control,” you should be saying, “I could have done this thing differently which would have reduced the chances of X derailing my plans, and I’ll do it differently going forward.” That should be your approach whenever anything in life fails, whether it seems to be your fault or not.
You cannot fall into the trap of letting failure as a result of things outside of your control excuse you from doing the absolute best you can regarding the things that you can control.
If your job is terrible, what can you do to make it less terrible or to move into a different job?
If your bills are too high, what can you do to reduce those bills?
If your car breaks down and drains what little savings you have while damaging your reputation at work and eliminating a day’s pay, what can you do to ensure that you get to work next time?
Every single unfortunate event in your life should be examined not in terms of where the blame falls, but in terms of what you can do to minimize the negative impact on your life, both this time and in the future.
Bad things are going to happen. It’s part of life. Things are never going to go perfectly. The best approach is to look at yourself and ask yourself what you can do to wind up in the best position after that bad event.
Never, ever fall into the blame game. Never, ever wallow in pity for your unfortunate circumstances. Those things ensure that you’ll get blindsided and knocked down again the next time around.
Financial success isn’t just about making good financial moves. It’s just as much about not making bad financial moves.
You can make a good financial move every single day, but if you’re making just as many bad financial moves, you won’t go anywhere. You’ll stay right where you are.
Make good moves, but make sure you don’t make bad moves. Spend less, but then don’t immediately spend it on something unimportant elsewhere. Work hard, but don’t turn around and slack off the next day.
There are times when your financial journey is going to feel frustrating and endless, and it is so tempting to just go do something “fun” and to “live a little” and spend money on something that’s quickly forgotten but washes away all of your progress.
It’s going to take willpower to get past those moments. There is no magic recipe. However, if you don’t get past those moments, you will never succeed in the long run.
My best tool for willpower in those days was to simply step back and think about the future that I wanted. Honestly, it’s basically the same tool I use today to help with willpower. I sketch out the bright future I want in detail. I let myself float along in that daydream for a bit, and then I ask myself which of the choices in front of me, right now, leads me toward that beautiful picture and which choices lead me away from it. There’s no tool I have in my repertoire that’s more powerful than this when I have a spending choice before me.
There are simply points in life where there’s nothing to cut.
At this point in my life, I lived in a tiny apartment with a bunch of people. People sleeping in sleeping bags, people on the couch, and so on. I ate a ton of ramen noodles to survive because you could buy them for 12 packets for $1 at the local discount grocer. I also ate a lot of free food by going to any and all meetings that provided food or snacks. I didn’t have a car and usually walked to work, occasionally riding the bus if necessary. I had about six changes of clothes and would usually wash them in the bathtub. There was nothing to cut without becoming homeless or not eating or something.
What I tried to do during that timeframe was to save every cent I possibly could.
I would look for change on the ground and pick it up, and each night I’d put all of my pocket change in a jar (both found change and change from any purchases).
I would try to go for days without eating food I had paid for. I didn’t steal, but I would go to pretty much any free public event that had food available. I’d go to grocery stores on sample day and just walk through the store a few times eating every sample. Where I worked, there was usually fruit and coffee sitting out free for the taking, so I enjoyed them both. At the end of any day where I didn’t buy any of my own food or drink and found sources elsewhere, I’d stick a dollar in my change jar.
Whenever I actually needed something, I would shop at the Goodwill and the Salvation Army within walking distance of my apartment. My wardrobe basically consisted of gifts mixed with Salvation Army and Goodwill items. Again, any change I brought home would go in my change jar.
My parents would still buy me Christmas gifts, so I would ask for very practical gifts, like underwear and socks and shoes and a coat and such. This avoided gifts that I wouldn’t have any use for while also minimizing the amount I needed to spend on practical items. Any cash gifts I received would go into my change jar.
When my change jar was full, I’d take it to the bank and deposit half of that money into savings. (I’ll get back to that in a second.) I’d take the rest and put it toward something that would save money over the long run.
For example, I might use the money to buy a bus pass rather than straggling for change. I lived a few miles from my classes and from my job, so I would often need to take the bus to get to work and to class and to get home. I didn’t want to have to use a car and there were many days when walking was just impractical. The end result of this is that I would often have more change in my pocket – I wasn’t dropping quarters into the slot on the bus, so that change stayed in my pocket.
A friend of mine had a warehouse club membership, so I would take advantage of that to buy my share of household supplies. I was supposed to buy toilet paper and dishwasher soap. Instead of buying six rolls of toilet paper at the store, I’d buy a 48-roll package at the warehouse club for only maybe three times as much as the six-pack. I’d do the same with the dishwashing detergent. That was pure savings that, again, left more money in my pocket.
At one point, I was able to buy a used bicycle off of someone for $10 or so, which became my primary transportation. I basically only used the bus on days where the weather made biking impossible. Again, this was a money saver – my transportation costs basically went to zero for more than a year.
The goal, really, was to stop pulling money out of checking so that my paychecks would build up in there while also filling up my change jar a little more frequently. I took pride in not opening my checkbook or using my debit card or credit cards. I took pride in filling up that change jar as fast as I could.
There are a lot of additional steps I might have taken at different points in my life to turn those tiny steps into something bigger. I might have bought a few basic things for my kitchen to make really cheap food prep easier, like a cheap plastic cutting board or some lunch containers or some containers to put meals in the freezer (so I could do things like make a giant pot of soup and then save it in batches for later). I might have bought some LED light bulbs if I knew I was on the hook for the electric bill, which would cut that light bill for as long as I lived there (naturally, I take those LEDs with me when I move, putting the original bulbs back in the sockets when I move out). It’s all about using those little steps to fuel bigger steps, and then using those bigger steps to fuel even bigger steps…
Over time, even as tight as things were, money did build up in my checking account. I was withdrawing as little as possible and I was putting money in there from my change jar and my paychecks. It was building up.
What did I do with it? I got smaller student loans. That was the biggest change. In one of my journal entries, I found a long description of a student loan decision in which the money in my checking account – built up over time thanks to all of these choices – helped make the case for me to request a smaller allotment of student loan money.
In someone else’s story, that might equate to a smaller car loan or maybe even paying cash for an older used car. It might equate to buying your own washer and dryer so you don’t have to go to the laundromat to wash your clothes any more. It might equate into some nice professional clothes so that suddenly you stand out a little at the office and your good work gets noticed more (this depends a lot on the career, of course, but it’s still possible). It’s all about small steps turning into slightly bigger steps, and those into slightly bigger steps.
One thing you need to start doing is protecting yourself against the unexpected.
What do you do if your car won’t start in the morning? What’s your game plan? How do you get to work or to class without being late?
What do you do if you get sick? What do you do if you get fired? What do you do if your roommate bails on you?
Those things are setbacks, definitely, but they’re setbacks you can plan for so that the impact isn’t nearly as bad when they do happen. Because, and here’s the real truth, bad things like that will happen. There will be a day when your car doesn’t start. There will be a day when you’re sick and need some medicine. There will be a day when you get fired. There will be a day when your roommate bails on you.
The best thing you can do is take some of the cash accumulated by those little steps and put it aside. Put it in a savings account, or under your mattress, whatever you need to do. Cash is king. Cash solves problems. Cash pays the rent. Cash pays the mechanic. Cash buys the medicine.
Having that emergency cash means that something that could be a crisis, something that could cause you to lose your job or get evicted or something bad like that, doesn’t become a crisis. It just becomes a much smaller setback. It’s much less of a problem to deplete a savings account temporarily than it is to get locked out of your apartment or to get a pink slip.
Have a plan for the crises that might pop up in your life. Have an emergency fund. Know what you’ll do when that bad thing happens. That way, something that could be a complete disaster turns into just a relatively minor setback. Rather than seeing everything fall apart, you can just keep taking little steps and make that ground up faster than you think.
It’s interesting to see how those frugal choices that I made two decades ago still affect my life today.
Things like finding change on the sidewalk and returning found nickel cans for the deposit added up to buying my clothes at Goodwill.
Buying those cheap clothes resulted in things like buying a bicycle to save on commuting costs.
Riding that bicycle each day instead of paying for the bus or paying for a car resulted in having a couple hundred dollars to apply toward tuition, which meant a smaller student loan.
A smaller student loan meant that less interest accumulated on that loan while I finished school, which meant an even smaller bill when I graduated and started paying it off.
A much smaller total student loan bill meant I was able to pay the whole thing off much faster than I would have otherwise, even with my much higher income after graduation.
Paying off those student loans faster than I would have otherwise made it possible for us to be ready to buy a home earlier than we would have otherwise been able to, and thus we paid less for that home, and thus we were able to pay it off even faster.
The simple fact of the matter is that I am able to trace some of the big financial benefits in my life today back to picking up nickel cans and eating ramen noodles when I was in college.
Yes, there were many mistakes. There were many bad steps along the way. There were many unexpected events and crises. Things didn’t go perfectly.
However, the impact of all of those negative things was made smaller by the constant flow of little positive steps moving forward, and then translating those little positive steps into bigger ones, and bigger ones, and bigger ones. It took a decade, but it impacted the speed of my student loan payoff, and that resulted in part, over the next five years, in home ownership and then the full payoff of our mortgage.
It takes time. It takes patience. It takes constant steps forward. It takes looking at your own behavior for the best answers you can find.
Everyone has to start somewhere, sometime. Start where you are, today.
Read more by Trent Hamm:
The post Building Financial Momentum When You’re Struggling to Make Ends Meet appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Over last year’s holiday break from school, my husband and I took our kids on a cruise. We planned our trip diligently for more than six months prior, shopped around for a good deal, and thought up all kinds of ways to save. Ultimately, that meant booking an inside cabin and cruising with MSC Cruises, one of the most affordable cruise lines for families.
We also saved money by avoiding the more pricey cruise excursions and coming up with day trips we could do on our own. With beach stops in the Caribbean, it’s pretty easy to create your own beach day with a quick taxi ride. We also spent our day in Guadeloupe on the ship to save even more, since it was one of the most expensive islands we visited.
For our cruise stop in Antigua, I looked ahead for beach options that would be fun for the kids and somewhat affordable. Ultimately, that led me to Darkwood Beach — a family-friendly beachfront with an on-site restaurant, chairs and umbrellas you can rent, and a floating obstacle course for the kids. Based on my accounting, I figured we could get away with spending $150 for the day — $40 round-trip for a taxi and $110 on food, the obstacle course, and chair rentals. That’s a lot by some standards, but considerably less than we would pay for a cruise ship excursion for four people. After all, most organized excursions on our ship were $80 per person or more.
We did go to Darkwood Beach, and we had a great time! We paid $15 each for the kids to play on the floating obstacle course for an hour, and we were happy to find they charged only $15 for two chairs and a shade umbrella. Unfortunately, we went slightly over our food budget at the restaurant. One big lunch and a couple of buckets of beer later, we owed $122.
I paid with a credit card as I always do, mostly because it’s convenient and I love earning credit card rewards. Our waiter changed the currency on our bill to around $329 in Eastern Caribbean currency, which was fine and correct due to the exchange rate. I added $60 in the local currency and totaled my bill to $389 EC. I didn’t think about it again.
Unfortunately, I quickly realized that something was wrong when, a few days later, one of the friends we were cruising with pointed out that his credit card had been overcharged. I checked my account and, sure enough, my credit card was overcharged by around $38 USD.
I immediately sent Darkwood Beach Bar and Restaurant a message on Facebook, and it didn’t take long to figure out what happened. They told me via text that they changed my tip to $60 USD, despite the fact that my card was charged in Eastern Caribbean and I totaled up the bill plus tip in the local currency. I asked them to change it because I did not tip over $60 USD on a $122 USD bill, but they wouldn’t.
Fortunately, I had paid with my Chase Sapphire Reserve card, meaning I could easily dispute the charge. The next time we were near land, I called the number on the back of my credit card to file a dispute.
I explained what happened to the Chase agent, and she was able to immediately refund the disputed amount of around $38. She told me that the restaurant would have around 90 days to respond to the disputed amount. If they didn’t respond, I would automatically win and keep the refund made to my account. If they responded and stated I was wrong, I would have to submit proof that they overcharged my account.
This is why I always keep my receipts — at least until charges post to my account. If you don’t keep receipts for restaurants and other charges made to your credit card, you’re at the mercy of the retailer to treat you fairly and be honest. By keeping receipts until the charges post, on the other hand, you’ll have proof if someone tries to increase their tip or overcharge you in some other way.
One of the main reasons I love using credit so much is the fact I get so many consumer protections, including zero fraud liability and the ability to dispute charges. This is actually the second time I’ve had to dispute a charge on my credit card — the first time was with a moving company that overcharged my credit card by $100 and wouldn’t refund it. When that happened several years ago, Chase immediately refunded the overcharge until the moving company could prove the charge was valid. They obviously couldn’t, so I rightfully kept the disputed amount.
A lot of people don’t know this, but you can dispute charges for several different reasons, including an overcharge or dissatisfaction with the product or service. The Fair Credit Billing Act not only protects you against unauthorized charges if you report them within 60 days, but also math errors, charges for services that weren’t delivered as agreed, and plenty of other scenarios that are actually rather commonplace.
Imagine if I had been similarly overcharged, but I had paid in cash instead before realizing the mistake. I would have had to get them to physically refund me the money somehow — unlikely, considering they refused to refund the $100 overcharge in the first place!
I would have faced similar hassle if I had paid with a debit card. Credit expert John Ulzheimer notes that the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) applies to debit card transactions, but with less robust protections overall. Where your liability for fraudulent credit card transactions is limited to just $50, you can be held accountable for up to $500 in unauthorized debit transactions if you wait more than two business days to report the fraud.
“Also, unlike credit card fraud, when unauthorized debit transactions occur, it is your money that’s been stolen. This could lead to a host of other problems if, for example, you don’t have access to the funds that should be in your bank account when rent, bills, or other financial obligations become due,” Ulzheimer says.
I always keep the credit card receipt for a purchase until the charge actually hits my account, and this scenario proves why it’s so important. If I hadn’t kept my receipt, I would have no proof to share with Chase if the restaurant decides to argue with the assertion that they changed the tip amount on my bill.
While most retailers, restaurants, and businesses are honest, there are always a few bad apples willing to commit fraud to keep more money for themselves, not to mention accidental overcharges or mistakes. By using a credit card — and keeping your receipt until your sure the charge went through correctly — you can protect yourself and the money you’ve worked so hard to earn.
Holly Johnson is an award-winning personal finance writer and the author of Zero Down Your Debt. Johnson shares her obsession with frugality, budgeting, and travel at ClubThrifty.com.
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The post Keep Your Receipts When You Pay With a Credit Card: A Cautionary Tale appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
If you’re a socially conscientious person, and we’re betting that you are, you take small steps to help make the world a better place.
When you can, you choose to work with companies that share your passion for making the world a better place. Kudos to you. You’ve racked up some seriously good karma points.
But when it comes to banking, you can’t really hope for that, right? You need to get a decent interest rate on your savings and smart, modern banking conveniences. Banks just don’t do the socially conscientious thing.
Until now. We’ve found a company that will give you a generous 2.00% APY on your savings and cash back on your debit purchases — and it commits to donating 10% of its earnings to charitable causes.
It’s time to expect more from your financial institution.
Aspiration Spend and Save is an online-only account that uses a smart model to help you manage your money without paying a bunch of fees. Oh, and you can earn 2.00% interest on your savings, 25 times the average interest rate of 0.08% reported by Bankrate. You just have to deposit at least $1 per month (but we recommend more if you want to build that savings!)
You can also get a spending account that pays you 0.5% cash back on your debit card purchases. Need cash? No problem. Use any ATM in the world and Aspiration will reimburse the fees so you don’t have to pay just to get your own money.
Aspiration’s mobile app makes it easy to access your account from anywhere — and deposit checks when you need to!
As if that’s not all cool enough, Aspiration commits to donating 10% of its earnings to charitable causes like education, clean water, environmental causes, health and human rights. It uses a “pay what you want” model, so instead of nickel-and-diming you with various fees on your accounts, you have the power to set your own monthly fee. Simply pay what you think is fair, even if it’s $0. Then, Aspiration uses 10% of this income to help make America better and to help those who need a hand.
You can even donate to causes of your choice through your Aspiration account. Plus, Aspiration will monitor your spending and give you a sustainability score. This score rates the businesses where you spend money on things like employee diversity and energy efficiency. Your score lets you know how effectively you’re spending your money at socially and environmentally conscientious businesses.
It’s official. There’s a financial institution with great interest rates and a big heart.
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.
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