Gigya Survey: 88% Of U.S. Consumers Say They Have Used Social Logins

Overwhelming majority of people choose convenience of using social authentication despite concerns over companies' use of their data.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1eZJWK5

This Harvard Grad Will Pay You $10,000 to Help Him Find a Girlfriend

Some people say “love doesn’t cost a thing.” But for one Alabama man, love has a specific price: $10,000. Ren Lu You is taking an unconventional route in his search for true love by offering a cash payout to someone who can find him a girlfriend.

The 29-year-old, who lives in Birmingham, Alabama, works 12 hours a day as an associate at a private equity firm, so time for dating is in short supply. He’s tried more conventional routes to meet his match, including going on blind dates set up by friends and using dating apps such as Tinder, but he hasn’t found the special lady he’s looking for yet. After a year looking for love in Birmingham, during which he went on “some interesting, some dull and a few utterly bizarre” dates, he decided to step up his search for love.

So he opened his own dating website. The homepage says “I’m single. Let’s change that.”

Play Matchmaker for This Guy

The premise is simple: Find You a woman he dates for six months and he’ll pay you a $10,000 finder’s fee. The one stipulation is you can’t nominate yourself. (Wouldn’t that be an awkward conversation? “Honey, it’s our six-month anniversary. Where’s my ten grand?”)

You grew up in the suburbs of D.C. and moved to Birmingham after he graduated from Harvard Business School. His website says that he’s looking for an active, intellectually curious woman who loves the idea of takeout and a movie for a date night. She should be interested in learning new board games and like learning random things on Wikipedia. He also wants a woman who will enjoy thinking about “ridiculous hypotheticals.”

You lists his vitals on the site; he stands 5’9”, weighs 155 pounds, and is a Myers-Briggs ENTJ. He doesn’t have any kids or pets, doesn’t smoke and isn’t religious. But he is a big movie fan and says he enjoys “going on strange new adventures” in addition to playing tennis and board games and going for hikes. Some of his favorite TV shows and movies include Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Silicon Valley, Memento, Wedding Crashers and Wall-E.

His site also includes a few “obligatory photos of me to reassure you that I’m not a Nigerian prince, strong AI or two midgets in a trenchcoat.” The photos depict him playing cornhole shirtless next to a white car, standing on a lake trampoline shirtless, and a few snaps with friends (wearing a shirt).

How It’s Working for Him

While You originally started the website to save him time and help him streamline the process of finding true love, the deluge of responses he’s received so far will no doubt take up quite a bit of his time. He’s already received thousands of submissions, some coming from as far away as Indonesia and Singapore, reports The Washington Post. He even stayed up one night until 4 a.m. sorting through submissions.

Half the replies are from women nominating themselves, so they can’t even cash in on the $10,000 prize. This means You might find true love without paying a penny.

However, even if he doesn’t end up paying out a finder’s fee, You will likely have to pay for a few dates with his potential sweethearts. And anyone who is planning on going on lots of dates can certainly benefit from a few creative ideas for romantic but affordable date nights.

Nominate You’s Next Girlfriend

If you know the perfect girl for You, just go to his website and fill out the form with some information about the potentially lucky lady as well as a photo or two of her. Presumably, if You is interested, he’ll be in touch to set up a rendezvous — though with the thousands of entries he’s received, it may be a while before she hears from him.

Then, six months down the road, if your matchmaking skills are up to par, you can cash in and collect your $10,000. That’s assuming you haven’t nominated yourself, of course, but if you find the man of your dreams, isn’t that prize enough?

Your Turn: What do you think of this strategy? Would you play matchmaker for a friend — or try this method yourself?

Kristen Pope is a freelance writer and editor in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The post This Harvard Grad Will Pay You $10,000 to Help Him Find a Girlfriend appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/1IY0s9R

15 Places to Retire in Europe

Here’s how much it costs to fulfill your European retirement dream.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1gzIlMb

5 Tips for Responding to Negative Feedback at Work

How to be calm, professional and open to discussion. 

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1Rwsfnd

Unruly Extends A View To 30 Seconds With New Video Ad Pricing Model

Advertisers will have the option to pay for video views only after an ad has played for 30 seconds.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1dYlTu8

Passions, Obsessions, Time, and Money

Recently, I listened to episode #161 of the Pen Addict podcast, which featured a long discussion on the topic of buying with intention. For those unfamiliar with the Pen Addict, it’s a podcast about pens and notebooks, a topic of which I have some degree of interest.

The hosts and the guest on that episode talked about the huge assortment of pens and paper and inks that they own and how they each struggle with being smart when it comes to further purchasing decisions within those areas.

This podcast really rang true for me for a number of reasons. While I don’t share the passion for pens and pencils and inks that they share, I do enjoy having notebooks around, particularly pocket notebooks. I have a drawer with several dozen of them in there unused that I’ve picked up in various places, though I do go through them at a pretty steady clip.

More than that, though, this podcast reflected onto my other, larger passions. Two in particular: books and board games.

I’m very passionate about books and board games as a participatory experience. I love getting lost in the chapters of a fascinating book, and I also love gathering around the table with like-minded friends for a lighthearted event or an intellectual challenge.

Yet, in both cases, and as is the case with many hobbies, there’s an accumulation part to the hobby. Both books and board games are items that you can buy and bring home to put on your own shelves, to read or to play at your own convenience. (With books, you don’t even have to commit physical space to it – you can just buy ebooks.)

Right now, in my office, I have two sets of wire shelves that houses 90% of my board game collection, with the rest on a bookshelf that also houses a number of books. Over my desk are two wall-mounted bookshelves that are basically full, and there are at least ten other bookcases or shelves in our house with books on them.

In short, I have a big book collection and a big board game collection.

But is that enough? Quite often, I convince myself that it isn’t. I spend money pretty much every month on both of these hobbies. In fact, they’re the primary outlet for my non-essential spending.

Everyone needs an outlet, right? There’s nothing wrong with having a hobby or two and spending some money on that hobby, as long as that spending doesn’t interfere with other aspects of life.

Here’s the catch: I recognize that spending too much on those hobbies is a pretty big detriment to my life, for several reasons.

First, the more stuff I have, the less time I have for each item. If I have a game night once a week where I can play three games and I own ten of them, then I can theoretically play each of my games once or twice a month. But what if I own a hundred of them? At best, I can only play each game once every eight months – and that’s if I never double up any plays along the way.

Second, the more stuff I have, the more space it takes up. Those shelves do take up square footage in our house. That square footage adds to our heating and cooling bills and it adds to our property taxes and it adds to our insurance, meaning it has a real cost, too.

Third, the more stuff I have, the more money and time I’ve taken away from other life goals. $20 or $30 spent on a board game is $20 or $30 not used on saving for early retirement, for example. $10 spent on a book is $10 not used on our other life goals.

Finally, the more stuff I have, the more time it takes solely to organize and maintain it. With hobbies, that can sometimes be a fun experience, but sometimes it’s a chore. You spend more time finding the book that you want to find. You spend more time finding the game you want to find. When things get out of order, it takes more time to put them back in a sensible order. You get the idea.

So, where’s the balance? What are some good tactics for spending money on a hobby without the collection becoming overwhelming?

I’ve found that most of my strategies come down to two main principles. One, the more I encourage myself to “do,” the less I feel like I should “collect.” My “collecting” nature – which is expensive – tends to pop up more when I’ve spent less time lately participating in the actual hobby. Two, I use simple easy-to-abide-by principles for adding to my collections. They aren’t so tight that I feel restricted and feel a desire to break them; instead, they feel smart and sensible.

Here’s how I do it, for both of my major hobbies (and some minor ones, too).

Have a Hobby Budget

Each month, I have a spending cap on all of my hobbies and forms of entertainment. It’s a tiny fraction of our income, but enough for me to be able to buy a board game or two, a book or two, and maybe another item or two for my minor hobbies if I’m smart with that money.

I try very hard to keep my spending within the limit of that “hobby budget.” Most months, I come in on the low side, in which case I put money aside for future months or for particular big expenses that I may want to spend my money on in the future.

My system for keeping track of all of this is simple. I use You Need a Budget to track my hobby expenses throughout the month and use that information to decide whether I can reasonably afford a particular item or whether I should wait. This keeps me on track quite effectively and ensures that I don’t routinely overspend.

Do I feel constrained by that budget? Not really. I have enough each month to buy something hobby-related that I want, and if I want something more than that, I know that if I just wait a week or two, I’ll have more money in my hobby budget. Simply knowing that I can have it in just a short amount of time really helps with the desire aspect.

Go “Shopping” in Your Own Collection

Every once in a while, I go through each of my collections and “shop” for new things to enjoy. This does a fantastic job of creating a sense of having something “new” to explore and enjoy without spending any money.

It’s really simple. Every few months, I just go through my collections and look for anything that jumps out at me as “interesting.” I literally pull those things out and bring them to the front of those collections.

If it’s a book, I put it on the shelf right above my computer in my office, where I’ll see it constantly. Usually, these “fresh” books inspire a big burst of reading over the next month or so.

If it’s a board game, I put it in my “game box” that I take to community game nights. That same box is the one that I often draw from when choosing games to play with my family, so it tends to simply be full of the games that I’m most interested in playing. As with the books, these “new” discoveries really encourage me to actively participate in the hobby rather than just passively “collecting,” which is really a huge benefit.

You can do this with any kind of collection. Dig through the recesses of your DVD collection to see what movies you might have forgotten about or not even watched yet. Dig through your music collection for great albums that haven’t popped into your head in a while. Dig through your closet for outfits you haven’t worn in a long time. You’ll find stuff you already had that excites you all over again.

Avoid the “Cult of the New”

The “cult of the new” is a subject I’ve written about before. It’s the sense of always wanting to have the newest and greatest thing in an area of your interest and, at the same time, having a sense that you’re being “left behind” if you aren’t at least familiar with that new thing.

For example, many conversations about books that I have with my friends, as well as many of the websites I might read regarding books, will revolve around the newest releases. While there might be some references to older books, most conversations tend to talk about the new thing, partially out of a certainty that the discussion won’t be a re-hash of an old one because it can’t be a re-hash, but also because it’s enjoyable to discuss something new and fresh.

Often, hype drives this. Whenever a major author releases a new book, it gets lots of attention. The same is true for major board game publishers and designers. When book (and board gaming) awards are announced, they’re well publicized. Some book awards pop up in mainstream media, while many others are covered in depth in book-focused media. The same is true with board gaming awards, though they rarely break out of gaming-focused media.

Those awards are not only pushed as being relevant, it’s usually true that the winners of those awards do actually have some real merit and are enjoyable to read (or play), plus they become a topic of conversation within hobby social circles. All of this creates a pressure to want that hot new thing.

Simply being aware of this is one step. A bigger – and probably better – step is to avoid it entirely and simply not buy any book or game (or anything else) that’s been released for the first time in the past, say, twelve months. I also find it useful to avoid a lot of the hobby-related media, as a lot of that seems to be driven towards continually buying new stuff.

Sure, you won’t have the hot new thing most of the time, but you gain something else. Generally, the items that are still being talked about and lauded a year after release are truly worthy of your attention. Turning off the “cult of the new” actually serves as a pretty good filter for quality.

Use a “Smart” Buying List

I won’t buy a book or a game unless it’s on my buying list. That’s a pretty bold statement… so, what’s my buying list like? It’s a list that consists only of books and games that I’ve had a continuous interest in for a significant period of time.

Let’s say I have heard interesting things about a particular book or game and am thinking about buying it. I’ll add that item to my Amazon wish list. Every few weeks, I’ll go through that list and ask myself whether I’m actually still interested in that item and, if I’m not, I’ll delete it.

Then, if I ever decide to buy a book or a game, I look at that list and look for the oldest item on there – the one I added months or even years ago. If I’m still interested, that’s the one I buy.

What’s the advantage of this approach? It keeps impulsive buys at bay, which is a great thing for a participatory hobby because those impulsive buys are usually not so good. Instead, it steers the focus to items that I have a continued interest in over a period of months or even years. Those items have survived my own changing interests, my reading of many reviews and other articles, and my own experiences and yet still I have an interest. That’s a sign of a worthy purchase.

Clear Out the Untouched Parts of Your Collection Regularly

Every few months – often at the same time that I go “shopping” within my own collections – I go through my collection and look for items for which my interest has waned. Is this book one that I’ll ever read again? If not, why keep it? Is this game one that I’ll ever play again? If not, why keep it?

Doing this serves two purposes. One, it reduces the size of the collection, which makes it easier to maintain and organize and makes it take up less space. It becomes easier to find items when you have fewer items to browse, after all.

More importantly, it gives me the opportunity to sell off those extra items. When I do this, I take the proceeds from those sales and add it to my hobby budget.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say I buy a board game for $50 and play it 25 times or so. I then grow tired of it and don’t play it for several months, then decide to sell it. Someone online offers me $25 for it and pays for shipping. I box up the game and ship it off, pocketing $25. That $25 is now available as a “bonus” to my hobby budget.

Effectively, I turned that game into a long-term rental. I rented the game for $25 for a year, which meant that I got to play it at my convenience for that time and was able to pass it on. To me, that’s a better deal than having invested $50 in that item, only to have it sit on a shelf taking up space and gathering dust.

Focus Your Time and Energy on Participation, not Accumulation

Both books and board games – and most other things people collect as an outgrowth of a passion – are physical items that are meant to set the stage for some sort of activity. Books encourage reading. Games encourage playing. They encourage you to do something, not just collect them.

So, focus on “collecting” the activity. Instead of keeping track of the books you own, keep track of the books you’ve read. Instead of keeping track of the games you own, keep track of the games you’ve played. Instead of keeping track of the DVDs or Blurays you own, keep track of the films you’ve watched. You can do this with virtually any hobby you might have. Focus on the participation far ahead of the stuff.

If your passion and energy are genuinely focused toward the process of collection, find something free to collect. I enjoy collecting unusual rocks, but those are ones that I find and bring home and clean up and put in the front garden. Sarah enjoys collecting heirloom seeds, most of which were gathered via trading and by growing her own plants.

Adopt a “One In, One Out” Principle

This one’s easy to explain. Let’s say I have a cap of 200 books in my book collection. Before I acquire a book, I have to remove one from my collection first to make room for it. If I receive a book as a gift, my collection cap temporarily goes up by one until I’ve read it, then I have to decide whether to keep it (and thus remove another book from my collection) or pass it on.

Again, this works for almost anything you might collect in relation to a hobby. If you have a smartphone, you need to get rid of one before acquiring another, and the same is true for tablets and other things like that.

This does become trickier for items that don’t take up physical space, particularly those that have no resale value. I basically ignore this rule for things like Kindle books.

Still, it works really well for any physical object that might have some degree of resale value. It keeps a collection to a reasonable physical size and ensures that you have to make some hard decisions regarding any new purchases or acquisitions.

Block off Hobby Time as a Priority

As I mentioned earlier, active participation in a hobby tends to dull one’s desire to actually acquire new things. Often, that desire to acquire is a manifestation of a pent-up desire to participate, one that isn’t being fulfilled in your daily life.

Don’t let that happen. Wall off some time in your life devoted solely toward your hobby. Allow yourself to have time in the evenings to read or an afternoon once or twice a month (or even weekly) to go to a meetup related to your hobby.

Make that time immovable. It is important. Time devoted to active leisure – which is what this is – is some of the most valuable time we spend. It keeps us joyful and makes some of the more challenging parts of our life more tolerable.

If you truly believe in the idea of “working to live” rather than “living to work,” then this concept should be a given. Devoting time to actually living your passions is just part of life.

However, many people have burdened themselves with responsibility to the point that they feel like they have no time for their hobbies or passions any more. That’s a dangerous point. It’s one that brings about unhappiness and often causes rampant hobby spending on things that are largely unused and unfulfilled.

Block off time for your hobbies, even if that means giving up on another responsibility. Work to live, don’t live to work.

Final Thoughts

Our passions often give way to collecting rather than doing for a number of reasons: hype, a lack of time, a desire to feel relevant. Addressing those things head on rather than just letting them guide your hand directly into your wallet will not only increase the joy that a hobby brings you, but it also helps keep your financial situation healthier.

If you have hobby spending and collecting that seems to be running out of control, take these strategies to heart. Try them out in your own life and see if they help you to start trimming some of those excesses while, at the same time, increasing your actual enjoyment of the hobbies you participate in.

As for me? I’m going to go read a book rather than hovering over the “Buy it Now” button on Amazon.

The post Passions, Obsessions, Time, and Money appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar The Simple Dollar http://ift.tt/1gzCXZD

Fixed or Variable: Which Interest Rate Should You Choose?

See which rate is best for you when refinancing student loans.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1UYhnxG

How to Work With Your Significant Other: Jobs and Businesses for Couples

My wife and I have worked together for more than 10 years. Friends ask if being business partners causes problems. Yes, sometimes, but working as a team has also strengthened our relationship, and we love our time together.

Psychologist Kathy Marshack points out that working as a couple used to be the norm. In the past most people worked on family farms, for example, and mom-and-pop shops were common.

She does note that “with increased time together, you have more time for conflict,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it work. There are plenty of examples of couples successfully working together, whether employed by others or in business for themselves.

So are you ready to try making money together? There are two obvious questions:

1. How do you create a good partnership?
2. Where are the opportunities for couples to work together?

How to Work Well as a Couple

You might think you should negotiate every decision when working as a team, but Marshack says someone has to be in charge, especially if you’re running a business:

When you’re working with your spouse, you’re going to be tempted to compromise, because that’s what you do at home. But that’s not good for business.

On the other hand, you don’t necessarily need one “boss” who decides everything. Marshack says a good arrangement is to each be in charge of different elements.

For example, in our online publishing business, my wife handles technical work like choosing, installing and testing software. We each control content for our own websites (hers are in Spanish and mine in English, making this separation easier). We’ve traded accounting duties back and forth over the years, but never in the middle of a year.

Sandy Malone, who owns Weddings in Vieques, says her husband Bill is a partner in her wedding planning business. But she also says, “we’re not equal partners. This company is mine.”

Bill handles equipment, radios, setup and teardown, but they try not to get in each other’s way. Sandy explains, “We have clearly defined roles and we don’t step on each other’s toes.” That separation of duties seems to be the key to couples working well together.

Relationship expert April Masini says it also helps to have times each day and places in the house where you don’t talk about business; she suggests the bedroom and bathroom. She says you should treat your spouse like any other coworker, but also, “Make sure you still act like a married couple when you’re not working.”

Jobs for Couples

So maybe you can get along while making money as a team, but where do you find jobs that allow you to work together? Here are some of your options:

Caretaking Jobs

These are common employment openings for couples. They include everything from off-season maintenance of mountain lodges to running households for wealthy employers.

For example, a search of CareerBuilder.com with the keyword “couples,” turns up a post for a “domestic couple,” needed for a New York City family. Duties include “childcare, house cleaning and maintenance, driving and overall upkeep” and the base pay is between $90,000 and $120,000, plus a place to live.

Business Management Positions

Sometimes it works well to hire a couple so there’s always someone manning the front desk or phone.

For example, that same search on CareerBuilder.com produced a post for a “storage management team” to take care of a self-storage facility and truck rental business. The ad clearly said, “We will only review candidates who are applying as a team for this position.” Pay included a place to live and about $1,200 monthly.

A retirement home looking for management also noted that they only wanted couples, saying “Couples will interview together, as a partner team.”

Working With Kids

Searching “married couple jobs” on SimplyHired.com turned up a listing for “Relief House Parents.” The ad explained, “The Relief Couples are the primary caregivers for the students living in campus homes.”

You would work from 6 p.m. Friday to 9:30 p.m. Sunday and get $758 per weekend. Summer camps for kids also hire couples.

Cruise Ship Jobs

Some cruise lines hire couples, and if you both apply, you can always say no if one of you isn’t hired.

Carnival Cruise Lines says it’s “a very ‘couple friendly’ cruise line, and endeavors to allow couples to work on the same ship whenever possible.” But it says that in the FAQ section of its entertainment recruiting page, so perhaps you’ll have a better chance of staying together if you’re a singing duo.

Other Jobs for Couples

Using keywords like “couples,” or “looking for a couple” on any of the big job websites is one way to find appropriate positions. But there is also a website devoted specifically to jobs for couples: WorkingCouples.com lets you browse listings by location or job type.

Businesses and Investments for Couples

The possibilities for couples to run a business or invest together are endless. Again, it probably works best if you have clearly defined roles. For example, if you start a restaurant, one of you might run the kitchen and dining room while the other handles the paperwork and marketing. If you’re investing in the stock market, one of you could specialize in dividend stocks while the other finds the best option investments.

You could also just work together at home but each with your own job or business. This is a nice way to share work time without the potential conflicts that come with sharing decisions. You might be a search engine evaluator, for example, while your spouse has a business selling things online.

Take a look at my list of 103 ways to make money at home for an idea of the many possible combinations that let you work together in the house.

Your Turn: Have you worked with your significant other, or do you hope to in the future?

Steve Gillman is the author of “101 Weird Ways to Make Money” and creator of EveryWayToMakeMoney.com. He’s been a repo-man, walking stick carver, search engine evaluator, house flipper, tram driver, process server, mock juror, and roulette croupier, but of more than 100 ways he has made money, writing is his favorite (so far).

The post How to Work With Your Significant Other: Jobs and Businesses for Couples appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/1gzzl9T

What to Watch for When Banking on Your Phone

More people are accessing their money on their mobile device, but it comes with risks. 

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1M89OS8

6 Career Missteps You’ll Live to Regret

These poor decisions will have lasting effects. 

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1L5LBM1

What the Women's Soccer Team Teaches Us About Pay Equity

The pay gap between male and female players reflects larger trends in our country.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1HH1CB2

5 Secrets To Getting Subscribers To Forward Your Emails

How do you get people to share your brand's messages with others? Columnist Chad White offers these key tactics for encouraging your subscribers to forward your emails.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1K4kot0

Crimson Hexagon Now Offers Access To Tumblr Firehose

Boston-based analytics firm joins Tumblr's preferred data partner program.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1M81W3c

Portfolio Analysis: a Hyper-Aggressive $1.29 Million Portfolio With Holes

Retirement accounts that rely too much on stocks are at risk should the market turn bearish.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1L5GgEG

Will rich entrepreneurs pay $15m to be Aussie?

A NEW visa scheme launching in the USA offers wealthy innovators citizenship Down Under in return for their money and skill. So who will want it?

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1O9DSuP

How to shop Amazon Prime Day for free

Laura Whitcombe

amazonprime.jpeg

Amazon will hold a one-day discounting extravaganza on Wednesday 15 July and is promising more deals than Black Friday.

Amazon will hold a one-day discounting extravaganza on Wednesday 15 July and is promising more deals than Black Friday.

While prices have not yet been disclosed, some of the items that will be discounted include the Garmin Forerunner 210 GPS Sportswatch, a boxset of all the Game of Thrones books and a Philips 50-Inch Widescreen 1080p Full HD Smart LED TV.

How to shop Amazon Prime Day for free

Feed Copy: 

Amazon will hold a one-day discounting extravaganza on Wednesday 15 July and is promising more deals than Black Friday. While prices have not yet been disclosed, some of the items that will be discounted include the Garmin Forerunner 210 GPS Sportswatch, a boxset of all the Game of Thrones books and a Philips 50-Inch Widescreen 1080p Full HD Smart LED TV. Exclusive The internet giant's 'Prime Day' is happening across the world and is exclusively for Amazon Prime members. The paid-for Prime service gives customers access to unlimited one-day delivery with no minimum order value, secure unlimited photo storage, Kindle Books they can borrow for free and unlimited instant movie and TV streaming. It costs £79 a year. However, non-Prime customers can shop Wednesday's sale by signing up for a free 30-day of Amazon Prime (which requires payment details to be submitted). They will be able to enjoy the discounts and benefits outlined above but if they fail to cancel the free trial by the end of the 30-day period they will be charged the annual fee. To cancel, free trial users will need to sign in to their account and select 'Do not upgrade' in the 'Your Account' section. It's also possible to shop Amazon Prime Day without signing up for the free trial either – as long as you live with an existing Prime customer or free-trial user. They are allowed to invite up to four guests living at the same address. Anyone signed up to Amazon Family or Amazon Student can also shop the Prime Day sale but Monthly Prime Instant Video members cannot. Amazon introduced Prime in 2013 when it cost £49 a year and replaced free delivery on all orders. In March 2015, the Advertising Standards Authority ordered Amazon to pull a misleading Prime advert that did not make it clear enough that customers signing up to free trial offer would be charged at the end of the trial period if they failed to cancel.

Amazon ordered to pull misleading Prime advert

Amazon UK ends free delivery on all orders

Scam Watch - the Amazon scam

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/1Rwb7xY

What you need to know about Apple Pay

Laura Whitcombe

applepay.jpg

Payment by just one touch of an iPhone or iPad or two clicks of an Apple Watch is now possible, thanks to the launch of Apple Pay in the UK.

Payment by just one touch of an iPhone or iPad or two clicks of an Apple Watch is now possible, thanks to the launch of Apple Pay in the UK.

The arrival of Apple Pay enables customers of most high street banks to save themselves time at the till or when making payments within apps.

Apple Pay to launch in July

Feed Copy: 

Payment by just one touch of an iPhone or iPad or two clicks of an Apple Watch is now possible, thanks to the launch of Apple Pay in the UK. The arrival of Apple Pay enables customers of most high street banks to save themselves time at the till or when making payments within apps. To take advantage of the technology, you need to link the credit or debit card you've added to your iTunes account – plus any others you choose – to your Apple device's Passbook by entering the card security code. Once your 'digital wallet' is set up, you can use Apple Pay just as you would make a contactless payment in a store; but instead of needing a bank card, you simply use your Apple device's Touch ID fingerprint recognition tool. The devices you are able to use Apple Pay with are the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3 and Apple Watch. Apple Pay is a secure payment system, meaning card details aren't passed on to the companies you buy from and are never be shared by Apple. So who’s signed up? Most high street banks have signed up to the new payment method, which has been in use in the US for the past couple of years. First Direct, HSBC, NatWest, Nationwide Building Society, RBS, Santander and Ulster Bank are ready. However, customers of Bank of Scotland, Coutts, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, MBNA, M&S Bank and TSB Bank will have to wait until the autumn. Barclays is the only big bank not to have already joined the scheme but says discussions with Apple are underway. A long list of shops, restaurants and other retailers have agreed to accept Apple Pay, including Argos, Boots, BP, Costa, McDonald's, Lidl, M&S, Post Office, Starbucks, TfL (Transport for London), Topshop, Waitrose and Zara. Notable exclusions so far include the big four supermarkets – Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco. Anyone wishing to use Apple Pay is encouraged to download the Find My iPhone app so if your Apple device is lost or stolen the app can quickly activate a 'Lost Mode' that will suspend Apple Pay or wipe your device completely. It is also possible to put an end to payments from credit and debit cards through Apple Pay via the iCloud, accessed through Settings. Safer way to pay Ernest Doku, technology expert at uSwitch.com, said: "Much has been made of the fact that no credit or debit card data is stored on Apple servers, shared with merchants, or transmitted with payments. All this means details are less likely to be stolen and misused. In short, Apple Pay is actually a safer way to pay than using cards and cash in your wallet or purse." "But to convince the sceptics and win over UK shoppers, Apple needs to shout even louder about its security features. Fears of theft and fraud are the biggest barriers to mobile payments going mainstream this side of the Pond. Just a fifth (20%) of Brits have made mobile payments using existing technologies, but 37% said fingerprint technology as a security feature makes them more likely to use Apple Pay." How much you can spend via Apple Pay depends on the retailer. There is no set limit, unlike the current £20 cap for contactless purchases (which is rising to £30 in September). For more information on Apple Pay, visit apple.com/apple-pay.

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/1Rwb7xT

How to Setup a Moneymaking Blog … FAST

By Holly Reisem Hanna One of the biggest concerns for me when I launched my blog was what platform to use. I knew I had to purchase a domain name and hosting, but how to bring them together and make them work was a mystery to me. Because I was a new to tech world, […]

Source The Work at Home Woman http://ift.tt/1JfaI9e

China’s brutal threat to homegrown jihadis

THIS chilling photo purportedly shows China’s hooded “terrorist sympathisers” being flown home to face harsh punishment. But there’s more to this image than meets the eye.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1Ht0gL2

25% of vulnerable young people can't pay their bills

Laura Whitcombe

billsandmoney.jpg

A quarter of vulnerable young people do not have enough money to pay for essential items and some cannot afford to eat, research has shown.

A quarter of vulnerable young people do not have enough money to pay for essential items and some cannot afford to eat, research has shown.

As a result of the shocking findings, charity Action for Children is calling for much more to be done to teach young people how to be financially capable.

25% of vulnerable young people can't pay their bills

Feed Copy: 

A quarter of vulnerable young people do not have enough money to pay for essential items and some cannot afford to eat, research has shown. As a result of the shocking findings, charity Action for Children is calling for much more to be done to teach young people how to be financially capable. One survey respondent told the charity: "I have four kids, wages are low, benefits take ages to get sorted, not enough money to live on." Another wrote: "I still don't have enough money to eat." A third said they were "constantly in debt". Some 67% of the most vulnerable young people the charity spoke to did not have, or can't remember having, financial education at school. A further 59% would not go to a bank for information, as they find them intimidating and, sometimes, quite unhelpful. And 87% wouldn't seek help from the Jobcentre. This is despite 74% of young people wanting to know how to budget and 51% wanting to know how to manage their bills. Fill the gaps Action for Children is calling for the government-backed Money Advice Service to fill some of the gaps in the provision of financial education as well as the financial community and the government to do far more to help. The government, for example, could consider making financial skills and advice "integral to employment and training programmes and support", it said. The charity added that many of the young people it spoke to talked of the importance of being able to trust organisations that may be able to help them. "Winning their trust involves simplifying language, being welcoming and flexible, offering products that include an educational element (e.g. helping young people to manage their money by alerting them early to potential problems), helping them to save, and helping them to budget. These are the things that vulnerable young people say would make a difference," the charity said in its Getting a Fair Deal report. Caroline Rookes, chief executive of the Money Advice Service, added: "This research demonstrates just how important it is to encourage young people to engage with the information and advice available to help them make the most out of their money." She added: "We are working closely with the finance sector to coordinate a financial capability strategy for the UK and a large part of this involves looking at how to bolster young people's financial skills, knowledge, attitudes, and motivations." Personal finance Teacher of the Year At Moneywise, we believe it's never too soon for young people to learn about their finances and that by mastering the basics early on in life, they will grow up to be the most financially savvy generation yet. That's why this year we launched a national competition to find the best comprehensive school personal finance teacher – someone who is passionate about this important topic and 100% committed to making sure their pupils master their finances. Having demonstrated a steely commitment to educating young people about the importance of making responsible financial decisions from an early age, Tracey Hill from William Howard School in Brampton, Cumbria, has won a £5,000 cash prize for her school. She will put the money to good use in supporting her teaching of this most important subject. You can catch Tracey talking about her teaching and her prize on BBC 1's Right On The Money on Wednesday 15 July from 9.15am.

Video Embed: 

How to get out of debt

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/1K40I8A