MAKE MONEY ONLINE POSTS: 10/03/19

الخميس، 3 أكتوبر 2019

Hostinger Web Hosting Review (2019)

Hostinger’s roots date back to 2004 in Lithuania. Although their web hosting services weren’t launched until 2007. Their first web hosting plans were available on 000webhost.com, before changing to hosting24.com in 2008.

After those first few changes, the Hostinger brand as we know it today was born in 2011.

While the company is fairly new compared to other web hosting providers on the market in 2019, the platform has 29 million users across 178 different countries.

This growth is impressive, to say the least. In short, they are not a small company.

But is Hostinger a good web host in 2019?

Hostinger is best known for its low-cost web hosting. If you refer to my best web hosting providers guide, you’ll see the Hostinger ranked first for the best cheap web hosting plans.

So for those of you who are looking for an affordable web hosting option, Hostinger needs to be taken into consideration. You can use this guide to decide if Hostinger has suitable hosting plans for your website.

Hostinger Web Hosting Plans

Compared to other web hosts on the market today, Hostinger doesn’t offer as many options. Their hosting plans are segmented into just three categories.

The good thing about this is that the plans are very straightforward. I’ll give a more detailed analysis of what these plans include as we continue.

Shared Hosting

Hostinger has three shared hosting plans. Here’s a brief overview of each one:

Single Shared Hosting

Starting at $0.99 per month (renews at $2.15)
Hosting for 1 website
10 GB of disk space
100 GB of bandwidth
1 MySQL database

Premium Shared Hosting

Starting at $2.59 per month (renews at $3.49)
Hosting for up to 100 websites
20 GB of disk space
Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited MySQL databases
Free domain registration

Business Shared Hosting

Starting at $4.09 per month (renews at $7.95)
Hosting for up to 100 websites
30 GB of disk space
Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited MySQL databases
Free domain registration
Free SSL
Free daily backups

As you can see, each pricing tier comes with added features and benefits. Since a free SSL and domain registration are pretty standard features for most web hosting companies, I wouldn’t consider anything less than the Business plan.

Right now they are actually running a special for a free SSL with all shared plans. But I can’t promise that will always be an option.

If you have an ultra-small blog or personal website, you can probably get away with the Single or Premium shared hosting. But just realize that you’ll outgrow those plans quickly as your traffic scales.

These are suitable options if you just need to get your site live but don’t plan to add much to it.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is a relatively new type of web hosting service. For those of you who want to know more about what it is and how it works, refer to my guide on the benefits of cloud hosting.

The cloud hosting plans provided by Hostinger are a step above the shared options. Let’s take a closer look at what each cloud plan offers.

Cloud Startup

Starting at $9.99 per month (renews at $15.90)
3 GB of RAM
40 GB of SSD storage
2 CPU cores

Cloud Professional

Starting at $18.99 per month (renews at $31.80)
6 GB of RAM
80 GB of SSD storage
4 CPU cores

Cloud Enterprise

Starting at $35.99 per month (renews at $71.55)
12 GB of RAM
160 GB of SSD Storage
6 CPU cores

All cloud plans come with unlimited bandwidth, isolated resources, a free dedicated IP, free domain registration, and a free SSL certificate.

As you can see, these plans come with significantly more resources than the shared options. The cloud hosting from Hostinger is best for small to medium-sized websites that are growing and need a web host that can scale with them.

The pricing for these plans is kind of in no man’s land. For comparison purposes, you can get 6 GB of RAM, 6 CPU cores, and unmetered storage from HostGator’s cloud hosting for about half the price of Hostinger.

But SiteGround’s cloud hosting plans start at $80 per month for fewer resources. So if you look at it from that perspective, Hostinger’s cloud plans are still relatively cheap.

VPS Hosting

Unlike other web hosting providers, Hostinger does not offer dedicated servers. So their VPS hosting plans offer the most speed and performance.

Hostinger has six different virtual private server options.

CPU power ranges from 1 to 8 vCPUs
RAM ranges from 1 GB to 8 GB
SSD storage ranges from 20 GB to 160 GB
Bandwidth ranges from 1,000 GB to 8,000 GB

The pricing for the most basic VPS starts at $3.95 per month and the most expensive VPS starts at $29.95 per month.

As you can see, there is quite a wide range of variety and options for you to choose from if you go this route.

In the world of virtual private server hosting, this is about as cheap as it gets. But for those of you who are considering a VPS for your website, I think you can do better elsewhere.

Check out my list of the best virtual private servers (VPS hosting) for some other options. I have some additional affordable providers on there, like iPage, if you’re price-sensitive.

Benefits of Using Hostinger For Web Hosting

Now that you have a firm grasp on the different types of web hosting plans offered by Hostinger, I want to take some time to explain why Hostinger is a top web hosting option. I’ve identified Hostinger’s best features and benefits below.

Decent Uptime

Cheap web hosting services might seem appealing on the surface. But it’s not worth going this route if your uptime rates are going to be insufficient.

Hostinger doesn’t have the best uptimes rates in the industry, but they certainly don’t have the lowest either.

Usually, we like to see web hosting services deliver an average of 99.9% uptime over the course of a year. Hostinger has some months in the 99.8% range, and even as low as 99.04%, which definitely brought their average down. But some months of 100% uptime saved their average.

You need to weigh the cost against your needs. If you have a small personal website with minimal traffic, 10-14 hours of downtime in a year isn’t going to kill you. However, if you have a business website, you’ll want slightly better rates.

Overall, Hostinger’s uptime rates are good enough for most small websites.

Fast Loading Times

For a cheap web host, Hostinger has surprisingly fast loading speeds.

On their website, Hostinger states that their server response time is 43 milliseconds, which is very good. Although I was unable to verify this number in any tests. I’d say that this should be advertised “as low as 43 ms” instead. You probably would need to have a top-tier plan using very little resources to achieve those speeds.

Either way, you can expect to have loading times somewhere in the 300-400 ms range on average. Again, this still pretty good for the price.

The industry average for page loading speed is closer to 900 ms, so Hostinger pretty much cuts that number in half.

Money-back Guarantee

If you’re unhappy with your Hostinger web hosting services, you can get your money refunded within 30 days of signing up.

This should be a good enough reason for you to sign up if you are on the fence about how your site will perform using Hostinger.

30 days is basically the industry standard for web hosting promises. Most providers will offer you this period, at a minimum, to change your mind and get your money back.

Hostinger’s money-back guarantee is good, but it doesn’t go above and beyond compared to some other web hosts out there. We’ll talk more about this in greater detail shortly.

Live Support

For me, customer support can make or break my decision to use a web hosting provider. If I have any questions or problems, I need to know that I can contact my web host immediately.

However, this may not be as important for some of you. Again, if you’re using Hostinger to host a small personal blog, then getting in touch with a customer service representative in an instant may not be at the top of your priority list.

Regardless of your situation, it’s nice to know that Hostinger’s live chat is easy and fast.

To test it out, I sent them a message asking for help and got a response in less than one minute. I was happy with the language and terminology used by the customer service rep as well. Their instructions were simple and easy to follow.

Furthermore, Hostinger has knowledge base articles on their website that offer guidance for self-help. I’d recommend using those as a resource if you end up choosing Hostinger.

Free Domain and Website Builder

All Hostinger plans come with a free domain and website builder. So for those of you who are building a new website from scratch, you can take advantage of Hostinger’s easy to use drag and drop builder.

They have lots of great templates for you to use as a starting point as well.

Honestly, Hostinger’s website builder isn’t the best on the market. But it’s good enough for a simple website.

I wouldn’t let this feature make or break your decision. But it’s a nice added benefit for those of you who are just looking for a cheap web hosting offering an all in one solution. Hostinger has the ability to be your one-stop shop for hosting, domains, and site builders.

Simple Interface

The Hostinger administrative dashboard is super easy to use. It’s very straightforward, even if you don’t have much experience with web hosting or managing a website.

It has large icons segmented into different categories, making it quick and easy to find exactly what you need.

You’ll have access to any installed apps, like WordPress, from here as well.

Hostinger makes it easy for you to change your usage, upgrade your plan, change your domain, and manage your email settings. You can even access your usage statistics to see if the plan you’re currently signed up for meets the needs of your website.

While Hostinger’s interface is easy, it’s not perfect. But I’ll go into greater detail on this shortly.

“Unlimited”

Hostinger has some great unlimited options available for specific plans.

For example, both the Premium and Business shared hosting plans come with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited MySQL databases, and unlimited email accounts.

That’s why I’d recommend choosing a higher-tiered plan over the entry-level pricing. I think the unlimiteds and freebies are worth the few extra bucks per month.

Price

Hostinger is cheap. So if you want a low-cost web host, this is a logical place for you to start. But keep in mind that like most web hosts, Hostinger has some tricks and ploys when it comes to their pricing.

Here’s a look at my checkout page when I selected the Single Shared Hosting plan, starting at just $0.99 per month.

So this should cost just $12 per year, right? Yes and no.

In order to lock in this low monthly rate, you need to sign up for a 48-month contract. Monthly rates go up for anything less.

When I added some basic features like daily backups, Cloudflare protection, and priority support, the rate went up even higher. Other features like an SEO toolkit start at $10 per month. Other web hosting providers may have higher entry-level pricing, but they include these features even in their most basic packages.

Keep in mind that your rates will go up when it’s time to renew your contract. Again, this is a pretty standard practice in the web hosting world.

Other Considerations

Anything cheap usually comes with some trade-offs. Hostinger is no exception to this rule. There are a few drawbacks that you should keep in mind when you’re reviewing their plans.

Must be Logged in to Access Support

Earlier I explained that Hostinger offers fast and reliable support. But priority support doesn’t come with all plans. If you choose the Single Shared Hosting plan without any add-ons, then you may have to wait a bit longer to speak to someone.

Furthermore, you can only access the live chat feature if you’re logged into your account.

This can be a problem if you’re locked out of your account or forget your password. It also presents a challenge for prospective Hostinger customers.

For example, if you’re not currently using Hostinger, you can’t live chat with a representative if you have questions about migrating your site to their platform. Instead, you’d have to just submit a general inquiry ticket through their website and someone will contact you via email.

This is not ideal. But again, it’s a tradeoff for the price.

Traditional cPanel is Not Available

Hostinger’s interface and administrative dashboard is simple and easy to use. We talked about this earlier.

However, they do not offer traditional cPanel.

For the most part, cPanel is the industry standard in web hosting. So if you’re used to using cPanel, then you may be a bit frustrated using Hostinger’s version.

But for those of you who are new to web hosting, you won’t notice the difference. Hostinger’s control panel will be just fine.

Exceptions to Payment Terms

As I said before, Hostinger has a 30-day money-back guarantee. But there are some exceptions to these terms that are worth mentioning. You won’t necessarily get a “no questions asked” full refund for all of their services.

The following products are not available for refunds under this policy:

Redemption feeds
Domain name renewals
Privacy protection
SEO toolkit
G Suite

Domain name registrations and transfers can be refunded if they are canceled in the first 96 hours of the purchase, not 30 days.

You can read Hostinger’s full refund policy here.

Additional Domains Aren’t Free

Premium, Business, Cloud, and VPS plans come with a free domain name. But if you’re planning to use Hostinger to host more than one website, you’ll need to pay for additional registrations.

With that said, the prices are pretty affordable. You can get a .xyz or .tech domain for just $0.99 per year. But .com domains start at $8.99 per year.

For those of you who are registering a new domain, I’d recommend getting it somewhere else. You can check out my list of the best domain registrars for alternative options.

Conclusion

Do we recommend Hostinger for web hosting? Yes.

Hostinger is a trusted name in the industry, offering cheap web hosting solutions for small websites. So if you’re looking to cut costs on web hosting, then you can consider Hostinger.

Even though Hostinger offers cloud and VPS hosting plans, I’d personally stick to their shared options. This is what they are best known for.

The Premium and Business shared plans will be more than enough to meet the needs of a small website or a personal blog.

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

Fees to use bank ATMs hit an all-time high nationwide

Accessing your cash from an out-of-network ATM is now more expensive than ever.The average fee is now $4.72, according to a Bankrate.com analysis. That works out to $3.09 from the owner of the ATM and an additional $1.63 from the accountholder's own bank.The fees, on average, have increased 33% over the past decade.To arrive at those figures, [...]

Source Business - poconorecord.com https://ift.tt/2oSWSMl

Don’t Wait: Here’s Where to Get a Free or Low-Cost Mammogram This Month

If you couldn’t tell by all the pink everywhere, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

And one of the best ways to stop breast cancer in its tracks? Early detection (it works).

Though every woman should do breast self-exams each month, women over 40 should also consider getting a mammogram — an X-ray that examines breast tissue — every one to two years. (Here are specific guidelines.)

If you’re younger than 40 but have risk factors for breast cancer, you might need mammograms, too; ask for your doctor’s recommendation.

But whatever your age, don’t avoid mammograms because of their cost.

6 Places That Offer Low-Cost or Free Mammograms

Women today have a bounty of ways to get free and low-cost mammograms. Here are six options.

1. Your Doctor

If you’re 40 or older, the Affordable Care Act requires your insurer to cover screening mammograms with no co-payment. More information is available here.

Medicare and Medicaid also cover the cost of mammograms.

2. The National Breast Cancer Foundation

The National Breast Cancer Foundation partners “with medical facilities across the country to provide free mammograms and diagnostic breast care services to underserved women.”

Click here to search for a location near you.

3. The Susan G. Komen Foundation

This organization has affiliates in 120 American cities.

According to its website, its affiliate network “is the nation’s largest private funder of community-based breast health education and breast cancer screening and treatment programs.”

To learn what resources are available in your area, search for your local affiliate here. Prefer to speak to someone? Call the organization’s breast care helpline at 1-877-GO-KOMEN (1-877-465-6636), and the representatives will help you find low-cost options in your area.

4. The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program

The CDC’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program “provides breast and cervical cancer screenings and diagnostic services to low-income, uninsured and underinsured women across the United States.”

To qualify for this screening, you should be between the ages of 40 and 64, have no insurance or insurance that fails to cover screening exams, and live at or below 250% of the federal poverty level.

You can find out more information about your state or territory here.

5. The YWCA

Some YWCA chapters provide breast cancer screening and education to women who have no insurance or who are underinsured.

Contact your local YWCA to see if it offers affordable mammograms.

6. Your Local Imaging Center

According to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, many imaging centers offer reduced rates during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

You can search for a local mammography center on the FDA website.

You might be wondering why Planned Parenthood isn’t on the list. These popular clinics provide clinical breast exams, but not mammograms; if an abnormality is detected during your exam, the doctor will refer you to a provider of low- or no-cost mammograms like the ones above.

To learn more about mammograms — including how they work and how to prepare — check out this PDF from the Komen Foundation.

Whatever you do, don’t wait!

Susan Shain is a contributor to The Penny Hoarder. Former SEO analyst Jacquelyn Pica assisted with research.

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.

source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/339U0dd

InMotion Web Hosting Review

If you’re new to web hosting, InMotion might not be a name that you’re too familiar with. Maybe you’ve heard of them, but they don’t have the same brand recognition as some of the other big players in the industry.

While they may not have Super Bowl commercials with women in bikinis, InMotion is one of the most reliable web hosting providers on the market today.

In fact, I ranked InMotion as the best web hosting for small business on my most recent list of the best web hosting providers.

InMotion is also known for its outstanding customer support and best business practices, which as earned them a top rating from CNET for 16 years. The Better Business Bureau gives them an A+ score as well.

So for those of you who are looking to host a new website or transfer your hosting service of an existing website, InMotion needs to be taken into consideration.

This extensive guide covers all of InMotion’s hosting plans, the benefits of using InMotion, and some other considerations to keep in mind while making this decision.

Is InMotion good for web hosting? Find out below.

InMotion Web Hosting Plans

I already mentioned that InMotion is a top choice for small business web hosting. They have plans to fit the needs of both business and personal websites of all shapes and sizes.

Shared Hosting
VPS Hosting
Dedicated Hosting
Reseller Hosting

We’ll take a closer look at the pricing and features of each plan so you can figure out which one is the best for your website.

Shared hosting

InMotion’s basic shared plans are geared toward small businesses. They refer to these options as Business Essential Hosting.

Here’s an overview of the three shared plans.

InMotion’s pricing is very straightforward and transparent. What you see is what you get. These are all great choices for static websites, custom applications, and any data-driven CMS.

All of the Business Essential plans also come with a free drag-and-drop site builder, which is a great bonus for those of you who are planning to build a new site from scratch.

You’ll also benefit from a free domain, data backups, free SSD drive, SSH access, and a free SSL.

InMotion’s shared plans are supported by multiple languages so you can develop your site in Ruby, PHP, MySQL, and more.

Even with these entry-level hosting plans, InMotion lets you choose your data center. With any Business Essential plan, you’ll have unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

These price points are very affordable, especially considering all of the features, benefits, and freebies. They are definitely a tier above the cheapest web hosting plans on the market, but the cost is still reasonable.

InMotion offers other shared options specifically for WordPress and website building. But for similar pricing points, you won’t get unlimited storage or bandwidth. There are also restrictions for how many sites you can host.

That’s why I lean toward the Business Essential plans with the drag-and-drop builder included for anyone who needs it.

VPS hosting

For those of you who are looking for more power, customization, and additional resources, then look no further than the VPS plans from InMotion.

All InMotion virtual private servers come with the following features:

Free site migrations
cPanel and WHM included
Launch assist
Unlimited domains and websites
Advanced firewall protection
Unlimited email accounts
Unlimited MySQL databases

The VPS plans are ecommerce optimized and offer optional root access, for those of you who want that added control over your virtual server.

Most of you probably want a hands-off hosting experience. In this case, InMotion offers fully managed VPS services with each plan as well.

The fully managed services include things like server monitoring and data migration.

I’d recommend the VPS plans for websites that experience high volumes of traffic with the occasional traffic spike. Maybe your small business runs limited time sales or deals on a monthly basis that draws more people to your site at those times.

In this case, with just one click you can always add additional resources to increase power and speed to meet those traffic needs.

Developers and IT teams may be interested in the cloud VPS plans from InMotion. These unmanaged plans are ideal for quickly building, deploying, and scaling applications.

Virtual private servers are best for small to medium-sized businesses that are continuing to grow. If you’re just running a small personal blog, then you’ll be fine with the shared plans.

Dedicated servers

Dedicated servers are the top of the line in web hosting. You’ll only need to consider these options if you need enterprise-level resources.

Essential — Starting at $105.69 per month
Advanced — Starting at $166.59 per month
Elite — Starting at $238.99 per month
CC-500 — Starting at $340.99 per month
CC-1000 — Starting at $414.49 per month
CC-2000 — Starting at $519.49 per month

As you can see, there’s a pretty wide price range here. If you select the Essential, Advanced, or Elite plans, then you can customize your InMotion dedicated server.

As expected, any changes will impact the price. In the example above, I upgraded the memory and SSD drives. This raised the Essential plan price from $105.69 to $161.85 per month.

I’d rather customize one of those first three plans as opposed to paying over $500 per month for the top dedicated server. In most cases, you probably won’t need that one.

I don’t have any issues with InMotion’s dedicated servers, but this provider specializes in VPS and shared hosting for small businesses. If I wanted a dedicated server, I’d look elsewhere. Check out my guide on the best dedicated hosting plans if you want to review some other options.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is very niche-specific. It’s made for web developers, designers, and agencies who want to squeeze some additional revenue out of their existing clients.

So if you fall into that category, you might want to consider InMotion’s reseller hosting solutions.

InMotion offers both shared and VPS reseller plans, totaling six different options:

R-1000S — Starting at $15.39 per month
R-2000S — Starting at $21.99 per month
R-3000S — Starting at $30.24 per month
Reseller VPS-1000 — Starting at $41.64 per month
Reseller VPS-2000 — Starting at $62.84 per month
Reseller VPS-3000 — Starting at $89.94 per month

All plans come with a free WHMCS license to make it easy for you to manage automated billing for your clients.

InMotion also offers assisted setups and migrations. This is helpful whether you’re starting from scratch or migrating your existing client sites to InMotion. InMotion’s Launch Assist will ensure that the onboarding process goes as smooth as possible.

I’d recommend the reseller VPS plans. The traditional reseller plans are ok, but they don’t come with scalable dedicated resources, root access, or a WordPress optimized stack. Those plans also aren’t ideal for large deployments.

Even if you’re only managing a handful of sites right now, I’d still go with a VPS reseller option. The starting price is very affordable and the benefits are significantly better.

For a more in-depth analysis of InMotion’s reseller plans and some other options, check out my most recent list of the best reseller hosting plans on the market today.

Benefits of InMotion for Web Hosting

Now that you’ve had a chance to review the different hosting plans, I want to show you some specific areas where InMotion stands out as one of the best web hosting providers.

90-day guarantee

I won’t consider using any web hosting service that doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee. Not because I plan to use it, but because I’m hesitant to pay for something that the company doesn’t stand behind.

In web hosting, 30 days is the industry standard. I’ve even seen a handful of providers that offer a 45-day or 60-day money-back promise.

InMotion blows the standard out of the water with their 90-day money-back guarantee.

InMotion Money Back Guarantee

It’s worth noting that the money-back promise only applies to the business, VPS, and reseller plans. Plus, you need to sign up for a minimum of six months to get this benefit.

All month-to-month plans and dedicated servers have a 30-day guarantee, which is still good enough for me.

Outstanding support

InMotion is an industry leader in customer support. This is a huge selling point, especially since some other web hosting providers fall short in this category.

For the most part, all of your web hosting needs will go smoothly. But if at any time you have a question, problem, or need some sort of assistance, it’s comforting to know that the InMotion team will be there to help you out.

InMotion offers support through live chat, phone, and email. In my experience, you won’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes to be connected with an agent.

If you’d rather learn on your own, InMotion has online tutorials and a community forum as well.

InMotion Tutorials

There are more than 3,000 articles on their platform with a wide range of categories to choose from.

I always look to see what a provider’s customers are saying about them online. It’s not uncommon to see lots of complaints related to customer service.

But that’s not the case with InMotion. Sure, there’s the occasional unhappy customer. But the vast majority of customer reviews praise the support offered by InMotion’s team.

Above-average uptime rates

Uptime is something that cannot be sacrificed when it comes to web hosting. If people try to visit your site and it’s down, that’s going to be a big problem.

InMotion’s uptime is good. It’s not the best that we’ve seen, but it’s certainly not the worst. For shared plans, you can expect about 99.95% uptime rates.

If you’re paying for a VPS or dedicated server the uptime will be better. But overall, they still come in above industry averages and it’s a reliable web host. You won’t have to worry about your site going down for extended periods at a time.

Fast page loading speed

In addition to outstanding customer support and specialty VPS plans, InMotion is known for its speed.

Speed is crucial for all websites, but it’s especially important for businesses. If your pages are taking too long to load, it’s going to frustrate your customers and they could abandon your site.

Furthermore, page loading speed has a huge impact on your SEO ranking as well. Google rewards sites that load quickly.

The shared web hosting plans are sufficient, but you’ll definitely want to consider a VPS plan if you want blazing fast loading times.

Freebies

I’ve written reviews in the past about web hosting providers that offer low pricing and then get you to pay extra with add-ons and upsells. InMotion includes more value with the basic packages compared to other web hosts on the market.

Here’s a quick look at just some of the shared hosting freebies, which are available even for entry-level plans.

InMotion Freebies

Furthermore, VPS plans come with free site transfers as well. Competitors typically charge $100, at a minimum, for this service.

While a freebie shouldn’t make or break your decision to use one web host over another, it’s a good way to add value to your plan.

Enhanced security

Unfortunately, cyber crime is something that every website owner needs to be aware of. You can’t have the “it won’t happen to me” mentality.

Most web hosts will offer some form of security protection for their clients, but I think InMotion really goes above and beyond with their plans.

By partnering with third-party security companies, InMotion’s plans help prevent DDoS and brute force attacks against your website. So you may not need to add extra layers of security, which will save you some money in the long run.

Other Considerations

No web hosting provider is perfect, and InMotion definitely isn’t an exception to this statement. While InMotion has its fair share of benefits, there are some potential drawbacks you should be aware of as well.

High contract renewals

Your initial contracts with InMotion will be the cheapest. When your plan renews, expect to pay full price for their services.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the industry standard for web hosting. There are only a handful of web hosting providers that don’t increase the rates after the first contract term.

So how much more do you have to pay? It depends on the plan. For example, the Pro shared plan promotional rate is just 8% lower than the renewal rate. But the highest-tier VPS plan is more than 50% off.

There is no avoiding this. Just make sure you understand what your rate will be when it comes time for you to pay full price. Your promotional rate won’t last forever.

Delayed verifications

As a new customer, you won’t have instant access to your plan. For security reasons, all customers need to be verified over the phone, which delays the sign up process.

I’ve even heard of some instances where InMotion has also required new customers to provide a photo identification card, although this is not a standard part of the verification procedure.

But if you look on the bright side, at least you know that InMotion is going above and beyond to ensure security. However, this can be a potential turn off for some clients, especially for people located outside of the US or Canada.

Plan restrictions

If you have a shared hosting plan, you’re going to have some restrictions. While InMotion advertises free backups, it’s only for websites smaller than 10 GB.

Furthermore, file restoration can only happen once every four months. There’s a fee for those of you who need this on a more frequent basis.

These types of restrictions will disappear for higher-tiered plans, like VPS and dedicated server hosting.

Conclusion

Do we recommend InMotion for web hosting? Yes.

More specifically, InMotion is best for small businesses. This provider specializes in VPS plans as well.

Overall, InMotion is considered one of the best web hosting providers in the industry for its outstanding customer service and reliability.

Is it the absolute best web hosting provider that we’ve ever seen? Probably not. But they still rank pretty high on our list.

Source Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/2OdO7r3

The Magic Ingredient in Frugality, Financial, and Personal Success

Forethought.

That’s it, right there. The rest of this post is details.

Success in almost anything you attempt in life usually includes forethought as a major element in that success.

How do you decide where you want to go in a particular area of your life? Forethought. You’re thinking ahead to where you want your life to be in the future.

How do you make a good choice in the moment? Forethought. You’re usually thinking of the pleasure and fun in the moment, but people stay on target with what they want out of life because they’re thinking ahead and considering how this choice – and many others like it – will impact what they want out of life.

Goals are about forethought. Good day-in-day-out choices are about forethought. Building the life you want is about forethought.

Forethought is simply the ability to think about your life beyond the short term and to be able to understand the impact of your ordinary daily decisions in terms of how they’ll affect that life.

Forethought happens when you sit down and make a plan for the future. You’re looking down the road to where you want to be and charting a course to get there.

Forethought happens when you are struggling with a plan and need to make some changes to it so you still make forward progress. You’re looking down the road to where you want to be, see some obstacles on the path, and are figuring out how to get around them.

Forethought happens whenever you’re making a purchasing decision. For example, is this store brand item a better buy than this name brand item? You’re thinking about whether the store brand will do the job that you want out of this item as well as the name brand, because if it does, then it’s the better buy because it costs less.

Forethought happens whenever you’re tempted. You see an item you really want to have. Your mind immediately switches to how good it will taste or how much you’ll enjoy it. But are there drawbacks? The more complete that picture, the better your forethought is.

I have found that, time and time again, the stronger my forethought is in a particular situation, the more likely it is that I’m going to make the right decision for my life as a whole. At the same time, the weaker my forethought is, the more likely it is that I’m going to make the decision that generates the most pleasure in the very short term without any consideration of anything longer term than that. Almost every time, decisions I make with limited forethought are going to be regretted more than decisions I make with plenty of forethought.

This begs the obvious question: doesn’t that mean that every decision ends up being bogged down in analysis paralysis, where every decision is overthought and excessive time is invested?

No, it doesn’t, as long as you’re cultivating good instincts that incorporate forethought into your quick decisions. If your instinctive responses to situations have some forethought baked right in – forethought beyond the next week or two – then you’re more likely to make really good snap decisions that are in line with your goals.

A person with good forethoughtful instinct is going to say no to a lot of impulsive purchases that really don’t offer anything beyond a momentary burst of pleasure. A person with good forethoughtful instinct is going to turn down most junk food and impulsive snacks, choosing to indulge only in exceptional things at a reasonable level. A person with good forethoughtful instinct is going to sign up for a 401(k) and bump the contribution up regularly until they’re at a level that will shoot them right to their retirement goals, even if that means a smaller paycheck.

The trick, of course, is cultivating those forethoughtful instincts. What exactly can you do to cultivate instincts that incorporate your long term future and goals? How can you naturally draw upon what’s best for you in the long term in the heat of the moment, when you’re mostly making a decision based on your gut reaction?

Here are some strategies that work well in my own life.

Sketch Out What You Want Your Life To Look Like in the Future in Great Detail

Just spend some time thinking in detail about the future you’d like to have five years from now or ten years from now. Keep it optimistic but realistic – you’re not going to be worth $50 billion in five years, but it’s realistic that you’ll have a better job and better career opportunities. You’re likely not going to be an astronaut or an NBA star, but you may have achieved a lot of realistic ambitions.

What will my life look like in five years if I put in the work and things go relatively well in each area of my life? My physical life? Mental and spiritual? Marital? Parental? Professional? Where will I be living? What will I be doing?

I try to add lots of details to this picture, not so much in terms of overplanning but in terms of trying to make it seem real and really flesh out where I want to be going. It’s those details that give life and shape to the picture.

For example, when I visualize my life five years from now, I envision my children as older teenagers, on their way out of high school and into college. I visualize them in detail and think about what I want my relationship with them to be like, much like my relationship with my parents now.

I think about my professional life and some of the things beyond merely writing articles for The Simple Dollar I’d like to achieve. What projects have I completed and feel proud of?

I try on lots of different variations and changes and see which one feels the most exciting.

I go on and on and on like this, through each sphere of my life, and not just at the five year point, either. I look at ten years and twenty years, too.

As I tell my kids sometimes: “Some people like to dwell on their past. I like to dwell on my future.”

Consider Carefully What You Need To Do To Get There – What Has Changed?

You have this great picture of the future that excites you. Now what? Now it’s time to develop a five year plan to get from here to there.

How do you change your life from the way it is now to the way it is in your vision? Make a list of the things that are different between your life right now and what’s in your vision, and then start asking yourself how you achieve each of those changes.

For me, those changes become five year goals, which I start breaking down into progressively smaller pieces until they become daily steps.

How does that work? Well, let’s say that my vision for the future five years from now includes me having written a book; in that vision, I have a book that’s been recently published and is doing reasonably well.

That sets a five year goal for me: write that book and get it published. Then I start breaking down that goal. What do I need to do in the first, say, year? Probably collect a lot of research. The first month of that year? Settle on a clearly-defined topic that I’m going to write about.

What ends up happening from this practice is that you end up defining a list of to-dos to take care of in the next few days and a bunch of daily habits to work on and add into your life. This whole thing becomes a feedback cycle, too, where you review your progress regularly and adjust according to what’s working and also according to how your vision for the future changes.

Again, the magic ingredient here is forethought. Much of the value in doing all of this is that you’re loading up much of your day with things that have a long term perspective. You’re not looking for the quick win in a lot of what you do in a given day if you follow this approach.

Think in Terms of Systems and Small Daily Steps

When I wake up on a given day, I try to look at that day as an opportunity to become slightly better in the areas I care about and to move slightly closer to a big goal that I have. Achieving those little steps is all that really matters, and those little steps are often very little, indeed.

If I want to reach and maintain a healthy weight, for example, I’ve witnessed in my own life that hard dieting doesn’t work. Rather, what does work is understanding that there’s a good balancing point between fulfilling one’s hunger and overeating and I simply aim for that balancing point. In other words, my daily practice is to simply drink a lot of water, eat good food when I’m hungry, eat slowly, and stop eating when I no longer feel hungry. That might not result in rapid weight loss, but it’s real and consistent and sustainable.

If I want to build a better financial foundation, cutting out all pleasurable spending isn’t going to do it. Rather, I aim for having most days be “minimal days” – meaning that my ordinary routines are as optimized in terms of money and resource use as I can make them – and to have a monthly hobby budget for things outside of those “minimal days.” For the most part, I don’t have grand financial plans – most of my actual savings is completely automated so I don’t even think about it most of the time other than a monthly review.

I can do this for any area of my life. If I want to be in better physical shape, I need to do some form of exercise every day. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as I devote a minute a few times a day to strongly exerting myself in some way. I’ll do a plank for a minute or do fast jumping jacks for a minute or something like that – I have a big list of things I might do. What I find is that when I choose to devote a minute and complete it, I usually want to do more so I keep going, but when I don’t feel like doing it any more, I stop. The magic of this is that I don’t feel miserable when exerting myself, but over time, I’m gradually able to exert myself more and more. It feels good rather than dreadful and it moves me slowly toward where I want to be.

I’ve been working on a book for a while. My daily step for this right now is to simply find one useful resource to add to my pile of research, along with a note about what’s valuable in it and how I might use it. Some days, I’ll add several (if I have time and I feel filed in), but my routine is to just add one.

It’s all about systems and daily steps, not big plans and broad strokes.

Think About Ordinary Decisions Outside of the Moment

All of us make thousands of ordinary decisions in a given day. We choose what to do. We choose how to react to things. We decide what to say to people.

Sometimes, those decisions are good ones. Other times, they’re bad ones. The key going forward is to make sure you keep doing the good ones and stop doing the bad ones.

The best method I’ve found for making that happen in my own life is to do regular after-action reviews and then visualize myself executing the good routines I come up with out of those reviews.

So, let’s say I made a couple impulsive spending mistakes. I spent money when I really shouldn’t have and I regret it and I don’t want to do it again.

The first thing I do is that I review what I actually did wrong, not to dwell on it and feel bad, but to try to understand why I did it. I walk myself through the situation where I made the spending choice. Where was I? How did I feel? Who was I with? Why was I tempted? I keep asking “why” over and over again, no matter how annoying and frustrating it might seem, until I have some answers.

Then, I visualize that situation again where I make the good decision. I imagine myself walking away from that potential spending mistake as vividly as I can, and I visualize a few similar situations, too.

That visualization trick is an attempt to reset my sense of what’s normal in that situation and in situations like it. I want my “normal” reaction to be walking away from a spending choice that I later realized was a mistake. So, I play that visualization over and over in my head.

It’s all about training instinct.

Reward Yourself Non-Destructively After a Number of Good Decisions

There’s nothing wrong with rewarding yourself after some positive progress toward your goal as long as that reward doesn’t undermine any of your goals. That’s often the problem with rewards – rewarding yourself with a large pizza and a a gallon of ice cream after two weeks of careful dietary choices undoes a lot of the effort, and thus it’s a pretty poor reward.

What I’ll often do is if I have a suitably long “streak” related to a particular goal or change I want to achieve in my life, I give myself a reward centered around free time. I’ll block off a full weekend day for some hobby-related thing, like playing an eight hour long board game with some friends or making a batch of craft beer or reading a book or something like that. For me, free time is really the best treat, as it relaxes me and brings pleasure and joy without detracting from my other goals.

Also, it’s more important to reward effort than outcome. Reward sticking to a daily routine, not necessarily the outcome of that routine. Don’t reward a number on a scale, for example; reward a month of sticking to a dietary rule without undermining it. Don’t reward a successful completion of a book; rather, reward a chain of days in which you spent an hour working on it. Don’t reward achieving a certain net worth; rather, reward a 30 day or 60 day chain of some daily step intended to improve your net work.

Track your efforts, not your results, and reward your efforts, not your results. Results are their own reward.

If You’re Feeling Unhappy, Step Back and Re-Evaluate

Almost always, when you’re trying to cultivate forethought and making changes to your life, you make a mistake, and that mistake usually comes in the form of recognizing that some new routine or practice is making you feel unhappy.

The second you realize this, step back from it. Don’t let it fester and grow or else you’ll find it blowing up in your face.

Rather, if you feel yourself becoming unhappy with a theoretically positive routine in your life, start asking yourself immediately why you’re unhappy with it. Almost always, a routine that makes us unhappy is one that’s eating up a resource – time, energy, money, something – that you’d rather be applying elsewhere.

I’ll give you an example of this. For a very long time, I found myself annoyed by exercise in the sense that I felt it was taking time away from other things I wanted to be doing. I would rather fill those thirty minutes or that hour with some other activity, not exercise, and that was often why I would stop an exercise routine. I found that when I combined exercise with some other element – social interaction or listening to a thoughtful podcast or audio book – I felt less like I was taking time away from other things I wanted to be doing, and now that’s my standard routine when exercising. I’m either doing something with a group or else I have a podcast or audiobook on my headphones or a nearby speaker. I find myself less annoyed with a minute spent doing a plank if I’m listening to an audiobook while doing it, for example.

That’s how I address a lot of discomfort in the routines I devise. I ask myself why I don’t like it, and keep asking why until I think I understand it, then I devise a new routine that incorporates my reason for discomfort so that it’s more sustainable.

You can’t always see when a change in your life is going to make you unhappy, but what you can do is react appropriately when it does. Don’t keep pushing yourself down an unhappy road; instead, address why you feel unhappy about it. This requires peering down that road a little bit.

Final Thoughts

The more you do the things described in this post, the more you’ll find yourself naturally thinking further down the road when you make decisions in the heat of the moment and the better those decisions will become.

In the end, that’s the magical ingredient in frugality and financial success and, well, any flavor of personal success. It’s about forethought. It’s about realizing how your little actions right now pile up into something big over a long period of time, and that’s enough to motivate you to do it and to stay on that path. It’s a mindset.

Good luck!

The post The Magic Ingredient in Frugality, Financial, and Personal Success appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar https://ift.tt/2ocBxxt

Get Out Your Stamps. We Break Down How Mail-In Rebates Can Help You Save

You know what makes any day 10 times better? Checking the mailbox and — instead of a bill — finding there’s money waiting for you.

That’s the sweet, sweet joy of a mail-in rebate.

What Is a Mail-In Rebate Exactly?

When you see a tag on the thing you’re buying promising you money, that’s not a scam. It’s a mail-in rebate. A rebate is an offer from a retailer or manufacturer to give you money back after buying a particular product. For you, it’s an indirect way of lowering the price.

Instead of seeing the savings immediately (like when using a coupon), you fill out a form, submit proof of the purchase and the company mails the savings back to you — usually in the form of a check, prepaid debit card or store gift card.

It often takes weeks — sometimes a couple months — for retailers or manufacturers to process rebates and mail you your money. Seeing it finally show up in your mailbox is always a pleasant surprise.

Mail-in rebates are offered on all types of products. You may find them more often on electronics, home appliances, automotive goods, beauty products and over-the-counter medications.

How to Decide If Mail-In Rebate Offers Are Worth It

Though mail-in rebates can knock a significant amount off the price of an item, be careful not to be lured into buying something just for the rebate.

Stores may advertise the after-rebate cost to entice you to buy, but you’ll be required to pay the full price upfront. Make sure you can afford the item without the rebate. Think twice about going over budget or charging the item on a credit card just for the sake of getting a fractional payout eight weeks later.

Another thing to consider is what form of payment you’ll receive. You won’t be getting actual cash in the mail. A prepaid debit card that you can use anywhere is great as long as it doesn’t charge fees and you are mindful of the expiration date. Getting payment via a store gift card is only good if you plan on buying something else from that retailer in the near future — or at least before the credit expires.

If you receive the rebate in the form of a check, you may have to wait just a bit longer for the funds to clear your bank account. If you don’t have a bank or are using a check-processing service, you’ll forfeit some of your savings to cover the check-cashing fees.

With mail-in rebates, pay attention to the fine print. If you don’t heed the instructions correctly, you could forfeit your rebate. You may have to save your receipt, cut out the product’s barcode or print a special form.

The company will likely have a certain window of time for you to redeem your rebate. Some retailers have moved the process online, so you can request to have your money sent without wasting a stamp.

Like with any advertised savings, make sure you’re not just chasing a good deal. Saving 50% is wonderful, but you could save 100% by not buying something you don’t need.

Nicole Dow is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder https://ift.tt/2pJua1f

Tesco launches new Clubcard Plus offering discounts on shopping - but it costs £7.99 a month

Sainsbury’s has also revamped its Nectar card scheme giving customers personalised offers to boost their points

Stephen Little Thu, 10/03/2019 - 10:47

Tesco is launching a new Clubcard subscription service offering discounts on shopping for a monthly fee.

New and existing Clubcard customers can subscribe to the new Clubcard Plus for £7.99 a month.

Benefits include 10% off big shops in-store and 10% off selected Tesco brands such as F&F, Fred & Flo, Go Cook, Tesco Pet, Carousel, and Fox & Ivy.

The new Clubcard Plus service will launch later this year and will be available to use in all UK Tesco stores.

Clubcard Plus holders will also be able to get double data from Tesco Mobile, while Tesco Bank credit card users won’t have to pay foreign exchange fees abroad.

You will be able to manage all of the new benefits on the Clubcard app.

Alessandra Bellini, Tesco chief customer officer, says: “New Clubcard Plus is a breakthrough innovation giving customers even more ways to get the best value while shopping at Tesco, for their everyday essentials, weekly shops, mobile and banking.”

Tesco Clubcard was first launched in 1995 and then relaunched in 2018 with contactless cards.

With Tesco Clubcard you collect one Clubcard point for every £1 you spend in Tesco and one point for every £8 you spend everywhere else. The points can be turned into vouchers, so 150 points are worth £1.50.

Sainsbury’s revamps Nectar card

Sainsbury’s is also rolling out a new Nectar card scheme, which will allow customers to boost their points.

Currently, Nectar shoppers earn one point for every pound they spend but the scheme will help them earn even more perks on top of this.

Customers will be sent a range of point-boosting offers via the Nectar app based on their shopping habits each Friday with the aim of boosting points.

To get the bonus points all you have to do is scan your Nectar card or the app at the till.

If you are an existing user you can update the app to get the benefits while new users can register online.

With a Nectar card you two points for every £1 spent in Sainsbury’s and one point for every £5 spent elsewhere. If you spend £6,000 a year on your card in Sainsbury's then you'll earn the equivalent of £60 (500 points = £2.50).

James Moir, managing director of Nectar, says: “We’re delighted to be unveiling a new world of Nectar to our customers, making it easier than ever before for them to get the most out of our hundreds of partners and rewards on offer.

“During the trials in Wales and the Isle of Wight, we listened to what our customers wanted and how they like to receive offers, in an increasingly digitised world.”

Source Moneywise - 29 years of helping you with your finances https://ift.tt/2pFzwKP

Women lose state pension age battle

The government did not discriminate against women when it increased the state pension age for women to equalise it with men, the high court has ruled.

Rachel Lacey Thu, 10/03/2019 - 10:16

The landmark ruling comes after a high court judge granted a judicial review to determine whether the decision to increase the state pension age for women was lawful.

The case was brought to court by Backto60 a campaign group that represents women born in the 1950s who are now having to wait longer before they become eligible to claim the state pension.

Women previously started to receive the state pension on turning 60. However, since 2010 that age has gradually increased in order to equalise men and women’s state pension ages. State pension age for both sexes is now 65 but will increase to 67 by 2028.

Along with other campaign groups including WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality), Backto60 argues that women were not given sufficient warning of the change and are now suffering financial hardship as a result.

It also wants the government to rectify the problem by restoring affected women’s financial position to what it would have been, had the state pension age remained at 60.

As many as four million women have been affected by the increase to state pension age. Many campaigners are not against the equalisation of the state pension, with the grievance focusing on what they regard as the government’s failure to communicate the change which they claim did not give them sufficient time to prepare themselves financially.

The Department for Work and Pension has argued that it did communicate the change and says the increase to state pension age is a necessary result of increasing life expectancy. It has also suggested that the cost of providing the financial redress Backto60 is campaigning for would be prohibitively expensive.

According to figures from Hargreaves Lansdown the cost of reversing both the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts would be in excess of £200 billion.

Rebecca O’Keeffe, Head of Investment, interactive investor, says: “Pension planning takes decades and most investors have targets and plans, but this case shows that anything can change. We’ve heard some devastating cases, to be published in our Great British Retirement Survey next week, from women who have suffered real hardship as a result of not having sufficient time to plan for these changes – and we’ve heard from spouses too, as any changes can have knock on consequences.

“Changes to life expectancy are already pushing state pension ages up – and changes to government finances may mean that our reliance on the state pension may need to change too. What the case does make clear is that individuals have to take steps to manage their own finances, as early as possible, in order to try and make sure that any future changes can be managed effectively.

“There is no doubt that the state pension is a huge cost to current taxpayers and that a retirement age of 60 is a tough one for the public finances – but there is also no real doubt that the lack of formal personal notices to the 3.8 million women affected meant that many women suffered financial hardship as a result.”

Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon adds that he believes there could be amendments made to the way the state pension is paid to alleviate pressure on affected women.

“In an era where private pensions now offer the flexibility to take as much or as little out from as early as age 55, there would be merit in offering not just affected women but everyone regardless of gender the option to take their state pension a few years early subject to it being set at a reduced level to reflect it being paid for longer. While many would argue this doesn’t go far enough to address the hardship a generation of women are facing, it would at least offer more options to choose from,” he says.

Source Moneywise - 29 years of helping you with your finances https://ift.tt/2ngptuU