How Do Self-Driving Cars Work and What Problems Remain?

Are you ready for your car to become a self-driving chauffeur? 

Progress in the field of self-driving cars has been enormous over the last decade. Waymo and Uber, both top contenders in the race for an autonomous driving future, weren’t even incorporated before 2009. 

Between 2015 and 2019, Tesla’s autopilot achieved more than 1 billion miles of total use. And between January of 2019 and January of 2020, Tesla’s autopilot is expected to more than double to more than 2.3 billion miles of use.

Even with all this progress, accidents and deaths from self-driving cars still pose a very real threat. In this article, we cover the ins and outs of the autonomous vehicle industry, the technology driving the progress and what problems threaten public safety as the technology is rolled out (all puns intended).  

What is a self-driving car? 

A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous vehicle, is a connected car that relies on a combination of hardware, software and machine learning to navigate various weather, obstacles and road conditions using real-time sensory data. 

People commonly associate self-driving cars with artificial intelligence, but many cars today have achieved multiple levels of autonomy without artificial intelligence. Features such as brake assist, lane assist, and adaptive cruise control, for example, can be considered autonomous driving to some degree. 

Self-driving cars do not rely on advances in artificial intelligence to move the industry forward, though the level of autonomy depends on the sophistication of the deep learning models used to control the car. In theory, there are 5 levels of autonomy that define a self-driving car. 

The 5 levels of autonomous vehicles

These 5 levels of autonomous vehicles were outlined by SAE International in 2014 to have a common point of reference for the industry. Each level depends on the level of automation and how much human involvement is required. 

Level 0

Okay, so there are technically 6 levels of self-driving cars, starting with absolutely no automation. 

In this level, humans control every aspect of the driving environment from acceleration, shifting gears, steering, navigation, weather, and more. An example of a vehicle in the Level 0 phase is the Ford Model T, because it doesn’t have any features that reduce the car’s reliance on humans, such as cruise control and even automatic windows. 

In Level 0, the human is responsible for executing maneuvers, monitoring the environment, and fall back performance in the event of an error with the car (flat tire, loss of brakes, etc.). There is no aspect of automation in this level.  

Level 1

The first step towards self-driving cars is basic driver assistance. Your car may actually fall within this spectrum of self-driving if it has lane assist, brake assist, or cruise control. 

A feature as small as side-mirror indicator lights to alert the driver when a car is in the next lane can be considered Level 1 driver assistance. Other common driver assistance features include a vibrating steering wheel when an unsignaled lane departure occurs and a self-parallel parking feature.  

In Level 1, there are some aspects of automation in the execution of driving functions such as steering, accelerating, and decelerating.

Level 2

The next rung on the self-driving ladder is Level 2 autonomy and is actually a big step up from Level 1.

In Level 2, the automated system finally takes control of the functional aspects of driving such as steering, acceleration and deceleration, among others. The human driver, however, is still responsible for monitoring the driving environment.

Examples of cars currently in Level 2 autonomy include Tesla’s vehicles with autopilot enabled and Nissan’s ProPilot assist.

Level 3

Level 3 autonomy is when self-driving cars cross the chasm into monitoring the driving environment conditionally. The conditional caveat is that a human driver is still the fallback redundancy when dynamic driving is required. 

If a car with Level 3 autonomy cannot adequately navigate an obstacle in the road or dangerous weather conditions, it will require the human driver to intervene. 

Uber’s self-driving car is an example of Level 3 because while the car controls most of the navigation, the human is still needed for edge-case scenarios the system has not been trained on. 

Level 4

This is currently the highest level attained by the autonomous vehicle industry. Level 4 is defined as high automation. The self-driving system is responsible for all execution, monitoring, and fall back, but is not 100% effective in all driving modes.

This means that the car will not understand how to perform in extremely rare scenarios that the models have not been trained to recognize. 

Waymo the autonomous vehicle company being created by Google, is currently in Level 4 autonomy. Its cars are currently testing self-driving ridesharing in major U.S. cities without human drivers. But there are still rare cases where the self-driving car is implicated in a situation that extends beyond the model’s understanding and ability to avoid an accident. 

Level 5

Level 5 is the goal of self-driving characterized by full automation. 

Full automation means a human being never has to intervene and the car can adequately handle every road (or off-road), weather, obstacle or any other condition, it faces. A world of Level 5 would work best as a network of only other Level 5 autonomous vehicles. If human error is involved, the system is vulnerable to failure. 

Since training machine learning models is essential to handle Level 5 driverless scenarios, some believe whoever has the most data has the most autonomy. George Hotz, the founder of self-driving startup Comma.ai, believes Tesla will be the first to reach Level 5 autonomy based entirely on the amount of data they collect. 

Technology inside self-driving vehicles

While the body of a self-driving car isn’t a reinvention, companies creating self-driving technologies have had to reinvent the way in which the car interfaces with the world around it. A combination of hardware, software and machine learning are needed to have the abilities and redundancy of a self-driving car Level 3 and above. 

Radar 

Radar, or Radio Detection and Ranging, is what self-driving cars use to supplement higher resolution sensors when visibility is low, such as in a storm or at night. 

Radar works by continuously emitting radio waves that reflect back to the source to provide information on the distance, direction and speed of objects. Although Radar is accurate in all visibility conditions and is relatively inexpensive, it does not have the most detailed information about the objects being detected. 

LiDAR

LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, is what self-driving cars use to model their surroundings and provide highly accurate geographical data in a 3D map. 

Compared to Radar, LiDAR has much higher resolution. This is because LiDAR sensors emit lasers — instead of radio waves — to detect, track and map the car’s surroundings with data being transmitted at the speed of light, literally. 

Unfortunately, laser beams do not perform as accurately in weather conditions such as snow, fog, smoke or smog. 

But even a small object like a child’s ball rolling into the street can be recognized by LiDAR sensors. LiDAR not only tracks the ball’s position, but also the speed and direction, which allows the car to yield or stop if the object presents danger to passengers or pedestrians. 

Cameras and computer vision

Cameras used in self-driving cars have the highest resolution of any sensor. The data processed by cameras and computer vision software can help identify edge-case scenarios and detailed information of the car’s surroundings. 

All Tesla vehicles with autopilot capabilities, for example, have 8 external facing cameras which help them understand the world around their cars and train their models for future scenarios. 

Unfortunately, cameras don’t work as well when visibility is low, such as in a storm, fog or even dense smog. Thankfully self-driving cars have been built with redundant systems to fall back on when one or more systems aren’t functioning properly. 

Complementary sensors 

Self-driving cars today also have hardware to enable GPS tracking, ultrasonic sensors for object detection, and IMU (inertial measurement unit) to measure the car’s velocity. 

An often overlooked but important sensor for self-driving cars is a microphone to process audio information. This becomes vitally important when detecting the need to yield to an emergency vehicle or detecting a nearby accident that could be hazardous to the car. 

Computation

In order for self-driving software to interface with the hardware components in real-time, processing all sensor data efficiently, it needs a computer with the processing power to handle this amount of data. 

The computer chips in your standard computer or smartphone are known as Central Processing Units (CPU) but when you consider how much computational power is needed for a self driving car, a CPU does not have anywhere near the bandwidth to handle the number of operations — measured in GOPS, or giga (billion) operations per second. 

Graphical Processing Units (GPU) have become the de facto chip for many self-driving car companies. But even GPUs are not the ideal solution when you consider how much data needs to be processed by autonomous vehicles. 

Neural network accelerators (NNA), introduced in Tesla’s FSD chip in 2019, have far superior computing power for processing real-time data from the various cameras and sensors within their self-driving car. 

According to Tesla, here is how these chips compare when processing the frames per second for 35 billion GOPS (giga operations per second):

• CPU: 1.5
• GPU: 17
• NNA: 2100

As you can see, Tesla’s NNAs are a breakthrough technology in self-driving car computation. 

Software technology of self-driving cars

When self-driving cars reach Level 5 autonomy, they will almost certainly use a combination of three distinct components: hardware, data and neural network algorithms. 

We’ve already touched on the hardware component, which is currently the one component with the most achievement. The algorithms and data components have a long way to come before we reach Level 5 autonomy.

Neural network algorithms 

A neural network is a sophisticated algorithm based on complex matrices designed to recognize patterns without being programmed to do so specifically. Neural network algorithms are actually trained using the labeled data to become adept at analyzing dynamic situations and acting on their decisions. 

Some of the algorithms that have been built using neural networks and used in self-driving cars are:

Neural networks must be trained with data about the task they are expected to perform. When Google trains image recognition neural networks, for example, they must train the model with millions upon millions of labeled images. 

Data

Data is one of the most important components for fully autonomous vehicles (Level 5) to become a reality. 

Large amounts of data are the raw materials for deep learning models to become finished products, in this case, fully autonomous vehicles. 

Tesla currently has the largest source of data with more than 400,000 vehicles on the road transmitting data from their fleet of sensors. By January 2019, Tesla had 1 billion miles of autopilot usage data. Compare this to Waymo who only passed 10 million autonomous miles by October 2018. 

According to Rand, in order for an autonomous vehicle to demonstrate a higher level of reliability than humans, the autonomous technology would need to be 100% in control for 275 million miles before it can be proven safer than humans with a 95% confidence level. 

Points of failure for self-driving vehicles 

In engineering, a single point of failure is one that will cause the entire system to stop working if it fails. One of the key tenets of engineering is redundancy, or a secondary system that acts as a failsafe in case one stops working. This is why airplanes have more than one engine, because if one fails, the plane can still fly. 

Since self-driving cars use cameras, Radar, LiDAR and other sensors to understand its surroundings, the likelihood of a single point of failure leaving the car inoperable is extremely low. 

When Tesla designed their FSD (fully self driving) chip, they put in two independent and identical computers, not only for redundancy in case one fails, but for communication between the two to validate decisions. 

But even with all this redundancy, the main point of failure for self-driving cars is in the software. 

Deep learning models are trained using real-world driving and simulations, but even after billions of miles of experience, there are still rare edge cases these learning models won’t understand how to handle. 

These edge cases are a major point of failure for self-driving cars since deep learning models do not equate to intelligence. Some of the looming problems threatening the future of self-driving cars are:

1. Predicting agent behavior: It’s currently difficult to entirely understand the semantics of a scene, the behavior of other agents on the road and appearance cues such as blinkers and brake lights. Not to mention, predicting human error such as when a person signals a left turn but actually turns right.
2. Understanding perception complexity: Self-driving vehicles fail when objects are blocked from view such as during snowstorms, objects viewed in a reflection, fast moving objects around a blind spot and other long-tail scenarios.  
3. Cybersecurity threats: Software is written by humans, and humans write code with vulnerabilities. Although very few people understand neural networks well enough to exploit these vulnerabilities, it can and will be done.
4. Continuous development and deployment: One problem facing self-driving vehicles is the process of re-validating changes to the software. If and when the code base changes, does this require testing for another 275 million miles to validate performance?

Real-world examples of self-driving system failure

On March 18, 2018, Uber’s self-driving car killed a pedestrian who was crossing the street illegally. Uber’s Level 3 autonomy likely failed in the machine learning model’s ability to make a decision based on the sensory detection of a pedestrian. 

Not to mention the failure on behalf of the fallback system in the event of an imminent accident: the human. The Uber safety driver behind the wheel failed to take action to prevent the accident.

Only 5 days later, on March 23, 2018, Tesla’s Level 2 autonomy vehicle hit a median divider head-on, killing the driver. 

Tesla confirmed autopilot mode was engaged and that the system failed because the lane divider lines were not clearly defined. 

The future of self-driving cars

Despite the definite problems outlined above, self-driving car companies are moving forward and improving every day. 

Considering an estimated 93% of car accidents are caused by human error, the opportunity for self-driving cars to remove a major threat in the daily lives of billions of humans is too great to pass up. There will be many debates over the efficacy of self-driving cars as well as regulatory hurdles before we see Level 5 autonomy deployed globally.

Related artciles:

• How Do Self-Driving Safety Features Affect Your Car Insurance?
• Tesla Car Insurance Review
• 60+ Texting and Driving Statistics 2019

The post How Do Self-Driving Cars Work and What Problems Remain? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar https://ift.tt/32YYnqU

What Are the Toughest States on Felony Speeding Offenses?

We’ve all seen it — law enforcement hidden from the roadway to catch an unexpected driver traveling over the posted speed limit. In worse circumstances, perhaps you were the one who wasn’t watching your speed and ended up with the red and blue lights behind you.

Depending on which state you’re pulled over in, the penalty for driving too fast could cost a pretty penny, or worse, time in jail. 

The economic cost of speeding-related crashes in the U.S. is $40 billion annually and that’s not to mention the 9,378 fatalities it caused in 2018 alone. So, it’s no wonder why some states are cracking down on the consequences of speeding on their roadways. 

With that, we had to know: what are the worst states to get a speeding violation?

States with the most jail time for speeding

Did you know you could get jail time for a first offense speeding ticket?

On the first speeding offense in Georgia and Illinois, violators can get a maximum of one year behind bars. However, even though it is the law, many speeding tickets don’t typically result in jail time. 

As you can imagine, the potential for jail time varies depending on the driver’s speed and circumstances. For example, if a driver is in a school or construction zone, the punishment in some states may be harsher.

Once a driver gets into reckless driving territory, which is defined differently in each state, the consequences get much higher. In Massachusetts for example, reckless or negligent operation could land drivers in jail for 2 weeks to as long as 2 years. 

Other states that carry up to a year in jail for reckless driving are Alaska, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington.

Second and third offenses also come with harsher lower limits and higher consequences. In New York, for example, a judge can sentence someone to jail for 15 days for going 11-30 MPH over the speed limit and 30 days for going 31 MPH or more over the limit. But a second or third offense within 18 months can result in 30 days of jail time for 11 or more miles per hour over the limit. 

Does that make you think twice about driving over the speed limit?

States with the highest fines for speeding

Speaking of the consequences for reckless driving, getting hit with a speeding ticket can weigh heavily on the wallet in some states. In fact, a whopping $6 billion is paid out in speeding tickets every year in the U.S.

In Washington, the state with the highest fine for speeding, reckless driving is classified as a misdemeanor, and anyone convicted is looking at coughing up $5,250 in fines and penalty assessments. Not to mention up to 364 days in jail and a possible 30-day license suspension. 

Here are the states with the harshest fines for speeding: 

Beyond these states with high fines, there are 12 other states that have fines up to $1,000 for speeding tickets including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.

States with the strictest license suspension laws

Some states have laws that take their drivers off the road if they violate the speed limits. First time speed violators in Rhode Island, Hawaii and Virginia face up to one year of a license suspension for traveling faster than the posted speed limits. 

The consequences of speeding go beyond a violation enforced by the police. Consider that speeding vehicles have a greater potential to lose control of the vehicle, inability to stop in time, increased severity of a crash and more.

If you want to avoid the burden of some harsh consequences, keep an eye on your speedometer. 

Sources: NHTSA 

Related articles:

• How Much Does Car Insurance Go Up After An Accident?
• 60+ Texting and Driving Statistics 2019
• Liability vs Full Coverage Car Insurance: Which Is Right for Me?

The post What Are the Toughest States on Felony Speeding Offenses? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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

American Express and Vitality launch a credit card that helps you earn cashback as you get fit

American Express and Vitality launch a credit card that helps you earn cashback as you get fit

The more physical activity you do, the more cashback you earn – but is it any good?

Stephen Little Wed, 11/20/2019 - 14:10

Image

American Express and insurer Vitality have launched a new cashback card that helps you make cash as you get fit.

The total amount of cashback you earn depends on how physically active you are in any given month.

To earn points, Vitality members track their activity on a compatible device, which then syncs with their Vitality app.

You can earn points for activities such as completing 7,000 steps in a day, visiting the gym or taking part in a run.

The more physical activity you record, the more cashback you can earn.

The credit card offers members 0.5% cashback on the first £5,000 spent and 1% above this

You can also earn up to 2% cashback if you do enough physical activity and have a health and life plan.

The card comes with an APR of 36.7%. It has a credit limit of £1,200 and a purchase rate of 22.9%.

Neville Koopowitz, chief executive at Vitality, says: “Health and wellbeing sit at the very core of our business, and time and time again we have seen the power of incentives in driving positive behaviour change around physical activity and making people healthier.”  

Is the card worth it?

While this is a novel way to earn cashback, the card comes with a hefty 36.7% APR charge.

So if you want to avoid this charge make sure you pay off your card each month.

Getting cashback could also prove a chore as to get the full 2% you need to earn 160 exercise points a month.

With 7,000 steps a day equalling three Vitality points, this could prove difficult for some people.

You will also need to spend over £5,000 a year and have two additional plans with Vitality. There is also a £6 monthly fee paid for the Vitality programme.

Andrew Hagger, a personal finance expert at Moneycomms, says: “The appeal will be limited as you have to jump through a lot of hoops to qualify for the cashback plus it seems there's a £6 per month fee payable for the Vitality programme.

“Cashback and rewards cards can give you something in return for your loyalty to a certain store or brand but only consider one if you know you will repay your card in full each month otherwise the interest costs will wipe out any benefits earned.”

Best credit cards for cashback

The current Moneywise best buy is the American Express Platinum Cashback Everyday credit card which has 22.9% APR variable. It offers 0.5% on spending up to £5,000 and 1% above this amount.

This card has no annual fee and an introductory offer of 5% cashback on spending for the first three months, up to a £100 limit. Bear in mind that American Express is less widely accepted than other types of credit card. You will also need to spend a minimum of £3,000 a year to get any cashback.

The Tandem Cashback credit card offers 0.5% cashback on all spending. You can also use it abroad and it has no limit on how much cashback you can earn.

While you won’t pay cash machine fees for withdrawals or spending around the world, you will be charged interest from the day of the transaction. The Tandem Cashback credit card has an 18.9% APR on spending or cash withdrawals.

An alternative is the Aqua Reward credit card which gives you 0.5% cashback on all spending up to a limit of £100 per year. As this card is designed for those with a poor credit history (although anyone can apply) it comes with a higher APR of 34.9%. Pay this card off in full every month to avoid paying a high rate of interest on your balance.

Source Moneywise - 29 years of helping you with your finances https://ift.tt/2D07E7F

Better health means 70 is the new 65, says government report

Better health means 70 is the new 65, says government report

A new report from the Office for National Statistics says that as people are living longer we need to rethink the retirement age

Stephen Little Wed, 11/20/2019 - 11:04

Image

The marker for the start of older age in the UK has traditionally been 65, most likely because it was the official retirement age for men and when they could draw their state pension.

However, a new report from the Office for National Statistics says that because of improving health and life expectancy this is looking increasingly “out of date”.

“There is no longer an official retirement age, state pension age is rising, and increasing numbers of people work past the age of 65 years,” the report says.

As people are living longer and healthier lives the report suggests it is time rethink old age and asks whether 70 is the new 65.

The number of people aged over 65 has grown from 5.3 million people, or 10.8% of the population, in 1950, to 11.9 million, or 18% of the total population, in 2018.

By 2050, there are projected to be 17.7 million people aged 65 years and over, or 24.8% of the population.

The ONS says that as people are living longer they can continue to contribute more to society through retiring later, volunteering, and providing care for family members.

The report suggests that rather than shifting the start of older age from 65 to 70, we should instead think of aging in terms of remaining life expectancy of around 15 years.

Using this system would mean that that old age started at 70 for men and 72 for women. By 2066 it will be 75 for men and 77 for women.

The report says: “Our findings indicate that health status by chronological age has improved over time while health status at prospective ages shows more stability.

“This means that measuring population ageing in terms of the proportion of people in the population of a set chronological age may not be the most appropriate measure to use when considering the health of our ageing population. Prospective measures, based on years of life remaining, may provide a more consistent indication and as such may be a more appropriate measure to use when planning for current and future health and social care needs and demand.”

The age when people start old age and retire has implications for a range of social policies, including health care and pensions.

The state pension age is rising, having previously been 60 for women and 65 for men.

The current state pension age for men and women is 65 and in 2020 will rise to 66. The state pension age is then due to increase to 67 by 2028 and 68 by 2039.

The report will add to fears that the state pension age could rise even further.

Earlier this year, a Conservative think tank led by former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith proposed the state pension age should rise to 70 by 2028 and 75 by 2035 because people are living longer.

Maike Currie, director for workplace investing at Fidelity International, says: “So-called retirees are now healthier, living longer, and retiring at different ages. We’re seeing a growing trend of people planning to continue working after they have retired, defying traditional expectations. 70 isn’t just the new 65, in reality it’s the new 40.

“As baby boomers reach their 60s, their approach to their working lives will transform the world of work and retirement as we know it. And how we plan our retirements will need to reflect this new reality. Longevity means that part of life is longer, but that retirement might be phased and that should remain a choice, rather than a necessity. The solution lies in having a plan and knowing the amount you need to put away each month to fund plans, and cover your lifestyle needs throughout your life.”

Source Moneywise - 29 years of helping you with your finances https://ift.tt/37xEECe

Fund Briefing: Is investing in India a route to riches?

Fund Briefing: Is investing in India a route to riches? Rob Griffin Mon, 11/18/2019 - 16:13

Share

Source Moneywise - 29 years of helping you with your finances https://ift.tt/2s3lLGX

How Nature Lovers Can Make Money With Hipcamp, the Airbnb of Camping

Get outside the 9 to 5.

San Francisco startup Hipcamp is adding ways to do just that. The platform, which is essentially Airbnb for camping, offers nature lovers soul-soothing side gigs and adventurers a convenient method to book outdoor accommodations.

In 2013, Alyssa Ravasio, the CEO and founder of Hipcamp, wanted to book a campsite on a California beach for New Year’s Day. After an exhausting search spread across scores of websites, she finally found one, but the experience left her frustrated. At the time, there was no better way to book camping experiences online.

So she set out to make one. She attended a coding bootcamp and designed a rudimentary version of what’s now Hipcamp.

Six years later, the website lists camping spots in all 50 states, including more than 9,000 parks, 18,000 campgrounds and 360,000 sites for the public to enjoy with the ethos that campers should leave the land in better shape than they found it.

The company’s rapid expansion of private and public land listings has opened up opportunities for landowners, photographers and everyday Mother Earth admirers to make a little money.

Hipcamp Jobs and Gigs

Here’s a snapshot of three moneymaking opportunities with the camping website. Side gigs are most popular, but the company offers some flexible career options, too.

Host Campers

Hipcamp isn’t another platform to list your vacation home on the water. The company’s niche is the great outdoors, so your property needs to be large and secluded to be a good fit. Campsites, farm lands, RVs, yurts and secluded cabins are all fair game.

A good rule of thumb is that your land should be at least two acres and your guests should be out of view and earshot of your neighbor’s property. Legally, properties under 20 acres need to offer bathroom accommodations. Boondock RV listings don’t need to offer toilets. (Again, the RV should be on a sizable plot – not, say, a suburban backyard.)

Pro Tip

Your listing may be subject to Hotel and Transient Occupancy Taxes. Check your county and state government’s websites to ensure you’re complying with local regulations.

Listings should be available throughout the year. One-time events or festivals aren’t allowed. 

Before creating an account, review the host standards for more specifics to see if your land qualifies. 

You’re not wrong to think it’s a little dangerous to allow strangers to occupy your land in the wild countryside. The good news is that Hipcamp covers hosts with a $1 million insurance policy and a $10,000 property protection plan.

Photograph Campsites

For hosts, it’s hard to give vast acreage a “lived in” feel for their new listing, especially when there aren’t any campers enjoying the property just yet. Grainy or unfocused photos of unoccupied land might give off… the wrong vibe.

Hipcamp has a clever solution for that. The company hires freelance photographers to stay at newly listed campsites – and waives the booking fee. As a photographer, you can camp overnight for free at any listing on Hipcamp’s assignment board, bring a few friends during the stay, and earn between $75 and $100 per shoot.

Hipcamp is looking for professional-level photos, with people and camping equipment in the frame, to give future campers an honest glimpse of the property. Each project requires 15 to 20 high-quality photos and one review of the listing. The gigs pay a minimum of $75. Depending on demand, you could earn up to $100.

Hipcamp encourages beginners and pros alike to apply to become a photographer, but high-quality equipment and photos are a must. Because of a large volume of submissions, the company says it could take more than two weeks to respond.

Once approved, you can skim through the assignment dashboard for the perfect gig. 

Work From Home for Hipcamp

Hipcamp employees can benefit from its mission to get more people outside. 

The company offers several types of remote jobs, meaning it is entirely possible to basque in nature while being on-the-clock, Wi-Fi permitting. (The Penny Hoarder can’t guarantee you won’t get fired for answering a conference call while hiking Yosemite.) Employees also get “Hipcash” to apply toward camping excursions on their own time.

The company isn’t entirely remote, however. Most of Hipcamp’s 45 full-timers work out of its San Francisco headquarters, but the company confirmed to The Penny Hoarder that it hires remote workers across all departments. Recent remote listings include customer service, engineering and marketing roles.

Numerous employee reviews on Glassdoor suggest the company’s culture is thriving. Overall ratings are 4.9 out of five stars. In addition to camping credits, a typical benefits package includes health, dental and vision care; a 401(k) retirement plan; professional growth stipends; paid time off and paternity leave.

Sorry in advance to remote workers. You won’t get to enjoy the kombucha on tap.

Adam Hardy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. He specializes in ways to make money that don’t involve stuffy corporate offices. Read his ​latest articles here, or say hi on Twitter @hardyjournalism.

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/2Xu4oL9

Pre-Loading Frugality

One of the most useful strategies I’ve ever found for encouraging myself to be more frugal is something that I’ve come to call “pre-loading.”

The idea is really simple: I do things when I’m feeling very frugal such that it’s easy to make frugal choices later on when I might feel more inclined to make other choices that aren’t as frugal. For example, I might do something right now such that, when I’m making a choice later, one of the less expensive options becomes a lot more appealing or easy.

I’ve come to recognize that I do this all the time throughout all kinds of different areas of my life. Here are eleven ways in which I pre-load frugal choices.

Make meals in the slow cooker in the morning. If you get up in the morning, put a meal in the slow cooker, and turn it on low before you leave for work, there’s far less incentive to just stop for dinner at a restaurant or grab some takeout. After all, you know there’s a hot home-cooked meal sitting at home waiting for you — so, why go out to eat? Why spend more on such a meal?

This doesn’t have to be difficult, either. There are many slow cooker meals that add up to little more than just dumping some ingredients in the slow cooker and touching the “Low” button. You’re now pre-loaded to go home that evening and enjoy your slow cooker meal.

The next tip also supports this “dump it and forget it” strategy.

Do a lot of the “grunt work” for making a recipe a day or two early so that it’s easy to throw together a good meal. If you want to make a meal during the week that requires some cooked beans or some chopped vegetables, do those tasks a day or two early and put the prepared items in the fridge. You can do this with all kinds of simple prep tasks: browning ground beef, sautéing vegetables, cooking rice, making a sauce… it goes on and on.

Knowing that the “grunt work” is done for a meal makes it a lot easier to talk yourself into simply going home and finishing that meal. After all, it’s now easy to finish that meal, and if you don’t do it, those ingredients go to waste. You’re pre-loaded to go home and eat.

Buy store brand items in bulk so you’re making fewer buying decisions and locking in an inexpensive purchase. If you spend your money on a bulk purchase of a store brand item that you know meets your needs, what you’re effectively doing is “locking in” that purchase at a very low rate by buying it in bulk. Note, of course, that bulk buying doesn’t always give you the best pre-unit pricing, but it often does, and it’s often not even close.

If you just buy an enormous bulk quantity of, say, store brand trash bags or store brand hand soap or whatever, you’re not only buying a very low-cost version of an item you regularly use, you’re buying so much of it so that the choice of which one to buy is made already for the foreseeable future. You’re pre-loading the decision of whether to buy more of that item or which one to buy for quite a while, as you already have that item in your cupboard.

Invite people over for dinner parties and activities in advance so that the option of going out is less enticing. If you want to cut back on your expenses of “going out,” plan ahead to avoid it by inviting your friends over to do something that doesn’t cost money. Have a potluck dinner party and/or a game night and/or a movie night. Invite people and pencil it in on a night when you might otherwise go out and spend a bunch of money.

Thus, later on, when you’re considering what to do over the weekend, you’ve pre-loaded a frugal activity instead of an expensive one. Having friends over is about the least expensive way to have a social evening.

Buy cars based on fuel efficiency and reliability above all else. The decision to buy a car is a major one, and when people are shopping around, they often get bogged down in features that really have little to do with the bottom line, like the car’s color or whether it comes with Bluetooth audio and so on.

Rather than looking at those features, keep your eyes locked on reliability and fuel efficiency. You can figure out reliability by studying the car issues of Consumer Reports and examining the brand reliability data. You can figure out the fuel efficiency by comparing the fuel efficiency data for each car. Buying a reliable and fuel-efficient vehicle will save you money throughout the car’s lifespan because you’ll be going to the pump less often, you’ll be repairing it less often and you’ll get a longer lifespan out of it, all of which will save you money.

Make meals in advance and store them in the freezer. Whenever you’re preparing a meal that would freeze easily, like a pot of soup or a casserole, make some extras and put them in the freezer. Most soups store incredibly well, as do many casseroles, and quite a few of them are better the second time around (I think chili definitely is, for example).

By doing this, you are pre-loading future meal choices with an extremely low cost option. You’ve got a meal in the freezer that’s pretty much ready to go once thawed. That meal can often make it easy to just go home and eat instead of going out to eat somewhere, and it can also help you stretch out the time between visits to the grocery store.

Go to the library and check out several things that look interesting at once. Take a quick stop at your local library and check out a few books and a few DVDs/Blurays that you find interesting, even if it’s more than you think you can get through in the time that you can check them out.

That way, you actually have several options for free entertainment when you’re at home. In the mood for a rom-com movie? You have one. In the mood to read a thoughtful book? You have one of those, too. By preloading your entertainment options with a bunch of free choices you’re likely to love, you’re more likely to choose one of those free options and keep money in your pocket.

Get a short haircut. I keep my hair cut short for several reasons. The first, of course, is that I think it’s a reasonable look for me, but that reason is followed by several that are financially related. One, a short haircut is one I can do myself with clipper. Two, a short cut can tolerate a lot of growth before getting it cut again. Three, a short cut can require very little maintenance and care. All of those things reduce and spread out the costs of maintaining my hair.

In effect, the decision to cut it short is pre-loading a lot of your future hair decisions. It reduces the need for care and maintenance products, it spreads out the time until you need to cut it again, and it further opens the door to doing it yourself.

Commit to a volunteer schedule. Volunteerism is an incredibly powerful way to spend your time. It gives you a window to devote time and energy toward a cause you really believe in, filling that work with incredible meaning. It’s also a way to spend your leisure time at no cost whatsoever.

By agreeing to a schedule of volunteering with a charity, you’re pre-loading some of your free time with a commitment to something wonderful, but something that won’t cost you money either. You’ve committed to something that’s basically free, but something that will provide personal value to you, and that will take time away from other activities that might involve spending.

Cancel a service rather than putting off the decision. If you’re thinking about cutting cable or ending a gym membership or something like that, do it sooner rather than later. Do it now, in fact. It will save you money going forward. Better yet, it will pre-load your later decisions, as you can spend your time doing other things that don’t require a monthly fee or membership dues.

Over the last few years, we’ve cut our cable bill, we’ve canceled Sling, we cut our cellular plan and we ended a gym membership. Why? It wasn’t that they were bad services — they were all good. The truth is that we weren’t using those things enough to justify the price. By canceling them as soon as we realized that we weren’t using those services enough to justify the cost, we pre-loaded all such decisions regarding those services in the future. We didn’t have to hem and haw about whether to re-up our memberships or resubscribe or sign a new contract down the road. The decision was made, and then we could figure out later whether we had any needs that weren’t covered by what services we still had in place.

Delete your credit card numbers from online services. This one’s easy. Go to the e-commerce sites you use, log in and delete your credit card numbers from those sites.

This choice effectively pre-loads your decision about future purchases from those sites in the direction of being more careful with your expenses. Going forward, you’ll have to manually look up your credit card number and manually type it in to make a purchase, making it not worth bothering in many cases and giving you time to rethink the purchase in others.

Along those same lines…

Put your credit cards in a place that’s hard to physically access, or destroy them. If you’re struggling with credit card debt, consider putting your credit cards in a place that’s far out of arm’s reach or, even better, cutting them up entirely.

By putting your cards in a place that’s difficult to access, you’re effectively pre-loading your spending decisions against using credit cards. Often, that translates into not spending the money at all or using a better source for the money, like your checking account.

If you’re feeling frugal now, it’s often easy to make decisions and choices and take actions that will nudge you toward being more frugal later. In fact, it’s this type of consistent pre-loading of your decisions that helps to eventually build a much less expensive and much more financially sustainable standard of living.

Good luck!

The post Pre-Loading Frugality appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar https://ift.tt/2QBbT1q

Five OpenCourseWare Sites for Free Online Learning

Do you want to expand your skills or knowledge base while at home but can’t imagine spending more money on overly expensive online courses? What if I told you that you could learn from Ivy League schools at home FOR FREE? Too good to be true? Keep reading! Whether you’re looking to build up your […]

The post Five OpenCourseWare Sites for Free Online Learning appeared first on The Work at Home Woman | Legit Work From Home Jobs.

Source The Work at Home Woman | Legit Work From Home Jobs https://ift.tt/35kIw7z