Questions About a Case Study, Rental Properties, Life Insurance Loans, and More!

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Renting out house to students
2. Loan against life insurance
3. Home loan with middling credit
4. Rental property willed to tenant
5. Negotiate now or later?
6. Which debt first?
7. Pay off mortgage first?
8. Living off last month’s income
9. Paying myself first?
10. Opening a Vanguard account
11. Getting interest from taxable account
12. Setting priorities

This week, I’m trying something a little different with the latter half of the reader mailbag.

A reader sent in a very lengthy case study about her and her family, which she graciously agreed to have shared on the site for discussion purposes. Since she also included a lot of questions about her situation, I decided to include the full thing in this week’s reader mailbag. The case study starts with question 6.

I don’t intend for this kind of thing to become a regular part of the reader mailbag, but I do think it is an interesting thing to look at and the case study and resultant questions do lead down some interesting paths.

If you’d like to do the same thing, here are some important guidelines.

First, alter personal details. Don’t give me your exact age or your partner’s exact age – being within a few years is fine. The same is true for your children and their genders. For your career, be vague with it, or as vague as you can be while still having valid answers to your questions. Be approximate with your location, too.

Why do these things? The biggest reason is that, if you’re too specific, other readers might actually figure out who you are, and that can lead to embarrassment.

Second, try to come up with several questions you want answered about your situation. Don’t just send in five pages of information and say “what do you think?”

Finally, understand that I won’t necessarily be able to include your story in the mailbag. I receive many more questions than I can use in a given week, and a case study will take up a significant portion of the mailbag in a given week.

Don’t hesitate to send in a question using the contact link at the bottom of the website or by sending me a message directly on Facebook.

Q1: Renting out house to students

I’m in the process of getting divorced. We own a house that I will be responsible for afterwards. I can’t reasonably stay in the house and maintain any type of lifestyle that I’d like to. The house is worth less than I owe on it, so if I short sale it I’m still going to be responsible for the difference that’s owed. I have a realtor that recommended trying to rent it to college students (I live about a mile and a half from a mid-size university). The university subsidizes housing, even for students living off campus. The house has 5 bedrooms so could fit 5-8 students. If I was able to move in 5 students it would cover the mortgage, insurance, and property taxes; anything more is profit. Do you think this would be a good idea to try to maintain the house without affecting my credit, and make a little money besides? Also, would you recommend hiring a property management company?
– Andrew

I think this is a reasonable approach for your situation, provided of course that you have a place to live elsewhere that’s low cost.

I would strongly recommend using a property management company in this situation. Make sure that the company is reputable and that you can still make solid money after paying their fees. Don’t hesitate to shop around a little bit.

You also need to make sure that you’re properly insured for this. This will require different insurance than your typical homeowner policy, so contact your insurance company well before you do this.

Q2: Loan against life insurance

I live in Canada and am looking to loan against my life insurance policy and was wandering if you could recommend either someone or a reputable company. I would appreciate any help you could offer.
– Annie

I’m assuming from your question that you have some form of whole life or universal life policy. You can’t borrow against a term policy because the benefits in those policies expire.

In general, you have two routes you can take. One is borrowing directly against the balance of your life insurance policy, which can really only be done through the company that issued the policy. The other route is to get a loan elsewhere that uses your policy as collateral, which is something that many banks will consider.

I can’t specifically advise you which one is better. Some, but not all, financial institutions will lend you money using your insurance as collateral, so you have a number of options there. I’d probably suggest starting with a local credit union and then shop around for the best rates.

Q3: Home loan with middling credit

I’m willing to buy a house… my credit score is 620… first time buyer… I have the money for down payment and closing cost, but, I dont want to spend my savings in down payment and move to my new house with no back up for rainy days… so… I was looking at the LINE OF CREDIT that banks offer… and my cuestion is; would a line of credit affect my purchase power some how? And, is that a good idea? I just dont wanna be with no back up like i said… do you have any other idea.. One more thing; if I wait for my credit score to at least be at 640, the mortgage company that i want to get the loan with can help me get first time buyer’s help for the downpayment, but, I dont want to be paying rent any more…any thoughts?
– Noelle

Here’s the thing: you won’t be paying rent any more, but you will be paying a similar amount in interest on a mortgage, and just like rent, that money is gone. You get nothing in return for it.

That’s why it makes little sense to jump into a mortgage until you’re in a situation where the interest is lower than what you’d be paying in rent – and ideally it’s substantially lower than what you’d be paying in rent.

How do you get there? Start building your credit score for one. Try to get your credit score over the 700 line, and you do that by paying all of your bills on time and getting your credit cards down to a reasonable level. You’re correct that you should maintain an emergency fund through all of this, too.

Q4: Rental property willed to tenant

What are the pitfalls for a tenant if a rental property is willed to the tenant?
– Maxine

First of all, your inheritance does depend on what exactly happens with the estate. Even if that property is willed to you, if the person who willed it to you left behind a bunch of debts that can’t be easily resolved with other assets, if this is a rental property and not a primary residence for the owner, it can potentially be sold to cover those debts. Such decisions are in the hand of the executor of the estate of the original owner of the house.

Unless the person is very wealthy, estate taxes shouldn’t be an issue.

When you inherit the property, it will have to be appraised immediately, and that will become the new basis for that property, meaning that if the value of that property goes up, you may owe taxes on the increase in property value when you sell that property.

Those are the pitfalls that immediately come into my mind from this situation.

Q5: Negotiate now or later?

My husband and I have a lot of debt at the moment and our current income is not covering our expenses so at the moment we have late payments and overdue notices everywhere. We are working really hard to bring in more money but I also want to reduce our expenses. I’m wondering if it is even worth me trying to negotiate lower interest rates or consolidate debt on lower interest with all the red in my current history. Am I better off trying to get a few months of good payment history down (once hubby gets a full time job) or can I try now? If I do have to wait when will I be able to do this and not get rejected?
– Diane

In your current situation, you should definitely negotiate. Start calling up the credit card companies and flat-out tell them that in your current financial situation you cannot keep up with the bills, period. Tell them that you must negotiate your interest rate and payments or you are potentially facing bankruptcy, which appears to be the truth.

Now, some lenders – particularly credit card companies – may end up closing out your line of credit at this point, but they often will negotiate and lower your rates.

Don’t sweat those cancelled lines of credit. If you’re going to get out of this, you have to stop relying on them, period. You have to figure out how to get by on less than what you earn. This isn’t optional. It’s not going to ever work if you don’t.

My advice, then, is to start negotiating immediately. Get those payments and rates lowered as soon as you possibly can.

So, let’s get started with this case study!

Q6: Which debt first?

Please feel free to use me as a case study. I would love any and all advice!

Age of wife 42
Age of husband 43
Age of daughters 6 and 5

Jobs:
Her – Teacher
Him – Police officer

CURRENT ASSETS

1) $22,000 in college savings through state sponsored plan scholarships – We put in $400 in a month after tax for our two girls ($200 in each account).

2) $48,000 + $13,000 in two separate 403b retirement accounts for myself – put in $500 a month pretax – going to consolidate them in July 2016.

3) $62,000 balance in state pension for myself. Putting in $500-769 a month pretax. it is a defined benefit plan.

4) $200,000 in husbands county pension. Putting in $2,000 a month pretax. It is a defined benefit plan as well.

5) $11,000 in cash savings – Currently put in $1,000 a month with goal of building to $15,000.

6) $2,600-$5,000 average in checking.

7) Toyota Tacoma truck used as the mommy mobile. Paid in full. 2005 model.

8) 2 bed/1 bath 950 sq foot home in Napa, CA purchased in 2005.

DEBTS

1) $22,000 loan on a very large towable camper (2 bed/2 bath…yeah…that big), which also acts as a guest house in our back yard.

2) $16,000 loan on a diesel truck to pull said fifth wheel (which hubby also uses to commute to work 10 days a month).

3) $300,000 mortgage left to pay. ($500,000 appraised value) $610,000 current zillow value.

GOALS

1) For me to have more flexible time so that she can volunteer at daughters school (cook more homemade meals and do more gardening) Is semi retirement (part time work?) a workable/ goal?. I’m a teacher so I already have some significant time off work. But I want more school days off work so we can leave and travel more on a flexible schedule. If they go on a choir trip to Europe I want to go. I want to see their performances. I want to be that mom that car pools for other working parents.

2) To have some investment income to be able to earn interest and have our money start working for us.

3) To possibly buy a mobile home or small condo for my mom who is somewhat homeless and in her sixties. May share financial burden with one other sibling.

4) To buy our next used car with cash combined with trade in value. I don’t ever want to do another car loan again!

HISTORY

I know the bad: the debt! It has been a six year battle for me trying to convince my husband that our money can work for us instead of us working so hard. When I went part time after the girls were born he had a heart attack and it was a huge fight. I told him that it would work out and showed him the numbers and how in some areas we would have to cut back but he was convinced it wouldn’t work. My goal was 50% but we compromised at 70%. I did that for two years and then went back full time in year three. We had to change some priorities and it was good for me. Something in me clicked. I was working part time and all I kept thinking was how I could save more/spend less to make it less hurtful at the end of each month. I wanted to work smarter/not harder.

We had tons of medical debt related to our children’s birth even with insurance and I was determined to never be sitting in that cesspool of debt again. I didn’t want our daughters growing up like that. I snowballed everything and paid off ALL of our debt: credit cards, medical, car loans, refinanced the house for a lower interest rate and less years for a savings of $80,00 in interest and paid off my school loans. It took us two -three years but we did it! I had already started the savings accounts for the girls, every time someone gave us cash for birthday or Christmas I put it in an account and when it reached $10,000 I rolled it into the state sponsored savings plan and continued adding to it every month.

I also saved money for rainy days (something I’d never done before) and saved up our emergency fund.

Then my hubby started looking for trailers and I knew I was in trouble. While I liked the idea of a trailer and traveling the country I felt we should have saved up the money and bought something with cash. Something he would feel comfortable letting me drive. But my hubby likes big and impressive and we now have a truck and trailer debt. He really has no concept of how much things cost. I tried to slow down the train by asking him to research how much the trailer would cost per month to see if we could afford it but all he could come up with would be the trailer loan amount of $300 per month. I would ask what about insurance? interest? Maintenance? Improvements? Things that came up later that I didn’t even predict was trailer storage until we finally fit it into our back yard. That grand total trailer cost is closer to $800 a month! Ugh!

But I agreed to it. I admit I get sucked into the fun aspects of the trailer too. Now I don’t have regrets that the trailer allowed us to spend three weeks traveling Idaho, Montana and Wyoming last summer… Stayed in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and we used it for the first three years at least once a month for a quick trip to various locations all along California. I don’t regret one bit of the travel. Could it have been done cheaper? Absolutely.

So, first question: what to attack first? (Truck and trailer debt?) Saving up for a minivan? (carpooling is hard in a truck!)
– Renee

The first thing you should attack is your husband’s spending habits. Given what you’ve described here, it doesn’t really matter what financial moves you make. If you have money to spend, your husband is going to find a way to spend it. That needs to be put in check immediately, or else all of the smart financial moves in the world are going to be for naught.

Now, how do you do this? The thing that worked best in my own marriage was simply talking about goals. What exactly do you each want out of life in the next ten years? Where do you want to be in ten years? With the debts you currently have, debt freedom is a pretty good goal. The challenge for your husband is to see that goal as important compared to having more stuff.

Now, if you’re looking at your financial options, assuming your truck is an extended cab and can in fact carry your family, I would focus on paying off the highest interest debt first. My guess is that it is your truck and trailer debts, but I don’t know for sure as you didn’t include the interest rates. Whichever one of those two debts has the higher interest rate should be the one you tackle first and foremost.

Q7: Pay off mortgage first?

Do I try to pay off mortgage earlier before doing investments in a place like Vanguard? I have a 15 year loan at 3% interest. I figured out that it may be possible to pay off our house in four years…if we snowball all our debt payments and savings payments (not counting retirement and college). Hubby doesn’t believe me.
– Renee

If you have a mortgage at 3%, I wouldn’t be in a rush to pay it off. Normally, it’s a good move to pay off a mortgage as fast as possible, but that is an exceptionally low interest rate. I’d probably stick with paying it off slowly at this point.

However, this is all predisposed on the idea that you’re taking the money that would have gone toward extra payments and are doing something smart with it. Are you investing toward big future goals with that extra payment money? Are you paying off your trailer and truck debt? Those are smarter things. Buying a bunch of stuff you don’t really need isn’t a smarter thing – your money is better off going toward your mortgage if that’s your other option.

In other words, if you’re saving toward sensible goals and/or getting rid of or preventing other debts, I would do those things first before putting more money toward that low interest mortgage.

Q8: Living off last month’s income

I heard living off last months income is helpful for budgeting so I’ve been trying to save enough to have for that. Does that really work?
– Renee

This is actually a really smart way to handle things. The way it works is that, at the end of the month/start of the next month, you essentially have a month’s worth of income (that which came in during the previous month) to live off of. You use that money to pay bills, to save, and so on during the following month.

Also, during that following month, more income will come in, which you’ll set aside for the moment. At the end of the month, you just switch to using the income that came in during the month and balance out your budget. It’s pretty easy.

The big advantage of this system is that you can actually budget and plan at the start of the month and make all of your savings choices and so on immediately. You don’t have to wait until a check comes in to do certain things. Also, there’s a bit of an “emergency fund” factor, too, as the extra money serves as an emergency fund.

Q9: Paying myself first?

I want to semiretire. I want to earn my other income with interest from my investments. This is my quandary. I have paid off all debt twice now and it lasts one year. Hubby decides he wants something and he goes and gets it and we are back in loan land. So I was thinking that I should pay myself into a Vanguard fund first before paying off the debt? I know it sounds crazy but then I could prove to him that it can be done.
– Renee

This is not crazy in the least. It’s a good idea to do your savings for big goals right off the bat in a given month. Before you do anything else, you take the money you want to save for big goals – like semi-retirement – and put it where you want to put it. Then, you live off of what’s left.

It goes really well with the “living off last month’s income” plan that you described in the previous question. At the start of the month, you just take some of the money you start with and put it aside immediately for your goals (semi-retirement, in other words).

Paying yourself first, in that you’re saving for big goals before living your everyday life, is a surefire way to make sure you keep making progress toward those goals.

Q10: Opening a Vanguard account

How much money do I need to start a Vanguard account? Do you open it directly with Vanguard?
– Renee

You don’t need any certain minimum to open up a Vanguard account. However, having said that, almost all of Vanguard’s index funds and other investment options have a $3,000 minimum to start investing. A few have less, but unless you’re going to stick with those for the long term, it’s not really worth it to put money in there for several months just to move to the investment you actually wanted when you hit the $3,000 mark.

My suggestion is to save in an ordinary savings account until you hit $3,000, then buy into a specific Vanguard fund that matches your needs. I like the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index for longer-term investments (things longer than a few years down the road).

You should make that savings plan automatic so you don’t have to think about it. Then, when you hit that $3,000 mark, turn off the automatic savings at the bank and turn on that same amount at Vanguard so money goes automatically into your new investment.

Q11: Getting interest from taxable account

Logistically how do you get the interest to you? All my 401ks reinvest.
– Renee

When you sign up for a Vanguard fund, they give you options as to what to do with your interest and dividends.

If you want, you can reinvest it. It’ll just roll right into the investment and you don’t receive a penny. You do have to pay taxes on that income, but it will be a percentage of a small percentage of the balance. For example, if you have $100,000 in there, your total dividends on a Total Stock Market index fund would be about $2,000, so you’d owe somewhere around $300 or $400 in federal income taxes. Not a huge deal.

You can also tell Vanguard to just send you a check whenever dividends are paid. Again, with the $100,000 example, that means you’d get about $500 a quarter from them, but you’d owe about $80 or so of that amount in taxes.

Q12: Setting priorities

I’m all over the map trying to squirrel away money and save so we can reach our goals before we spend it!! I can’t seem to settle on which priority to start first.
– Renee

This comes back to the very first answer I gave you: it’s all about goal setting. The thing you need to do more than anything else is to sit down with your husband and talk about your goals. Where do you want to be in the future?

This is not about dollars and cents. The money is just there to support what you guys want to be doing.

I will say this, though: when you choose to do one thing with your money, you close the door on other things. If you buy big expensive toys, then you might be closing the door on semi-retirement, for example.

It sounds to me like your number one challenge is that you and your husband have different goals and ideas about the coming years. If you can resolve those differences, things will start falling into place.

Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

The post Questions About a Case Study, Rental Properties, Life Insurance Loans, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Want to Make $150? This Only Takes 20 Minutes

Need some help starting an emergency fund?

I’ve got a really simple way to make it happen: Open a separate bank account, put a free $150 in it and don’t touch the money. Ever.

Check your budget to see what you can spare to save, then designate part of your paycheck to automatically go into the account. And then set it, forget it and don’t touch that account unless catastrophe strikes.  

With that money directed into a special account where you don’t see it, it’s easy to avoid the temptation to spend it on other things.

How to Get $150 When You Open a New Checking Account With Santander

If you’re a new customer, Santander Bank will give you $150 for opening a new checking account. Use this account to hold your savings, and you can kickstart your emergency fund with free cash!

The offer works for Basic, Classic and Premium checking accounts, which offer a variety of options to fit your needs.

Here’s how the deal works:

1. Open an eligible new Santander checking account with a minimum deposit of $25 (if you prefer, they’ll send you a coupon code to open your account in person at a local branch.

Use the promotional link below to grab the bonus:

2. Have direct deposits totaling $500 or more within the first 90 days.

3. Keep your account open for at least 90 days.

4. Once you meet these conditions, your $150 will be paid within 30 days.

Start Your Emergency Fund Now

Open your new checking account with $25 today. Direct deposit at least $500 into it over the next 90 days, then keep adding a small amount from each paycheck — even if it’s just $10 or $20 — until you have enough to cover an unexpected car repair or medical bill.

Then, just as you’re watching your emergency fund grow, Santander will give you a $150 bonus within the month to boost it even further.

This deal is good until June 30. 

Your Turn: Do you use a separate bank account to avoid temptation and save money? Do you have an emergency fund? Why or why not?

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We would have shared them with you anyway, but a true “penny hoarder” would be a fool not to take the company’s money.

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Should New College Grads Pay Down Student Loans, or Start Investing?

Read any personal finance site and you’re going to find the same piece of advice over and over again: Start saving and investing as early and often as possible. 

It’s good advice. Simply saving money is the single best investment you’ll ever make, and the sooner you get started the better.

But it’s not always easy advice to follow, especially if you’re a recent college grad with student loans and an entry-level income.

I’ve talked to a lot of people in that exact situation who are understandably stressed out. They want to be saving and investing, but that student loan obligation stands in the way and they feel like they’re falling behind.

So, what do you do? How do you balance the need to invest with the need to pay down your student loans? How should you prioritize these two big goals?

Let’s walk through it step-by-step together.

Step 1: Know Your Investment Options

Before you can make any kind of decision, you have to know what your options are. Let’s start on the investment side of things.

The first place to look is your employer. Does your company offer a retirement plan? Is there an employer match on your contributions? Are there good, low-cost investment options? You can ask your HR rep for answers to these questions, and you can also request a summary plan description to dig into the details.

No matter what your employer offers, you likely have access to some other tax-advantaged investment accounts as well:

• IRAs and Roth IRAs: Individual retirement accounts are like a 401(k), except that you open them yourself.
• Health Savings Account: Possibly the best retirement account available, if you qualify for one.
• Self-Employed Accounts: If you earn any money on the side, you may be able to open your own retirement account for extra contributions.

Step 2: Organize Your Student Loans

There are three critical pieces of information you should know about each of your student loans:

1. Your outstanding balance (how much you owe)
2. Your minimum monthly payment
3. Your interest rate

For federal student loans, you can get all of this information through the National Student Loan Data System. This will also give you information about the type of student loans you have, which will be important later as you look into repayment and consolidation options.

For private student loans, you can get this information by pulling a free copy of your credit report at annualcreditreport.com.

Step 3: Pay the Minimum on All Student Loans

No matter what, pay at least the minimum on all your student loans. This keeps your credit history in good shape, keeps you out of default, and maintains your eligibility for potential loan forgiveness.

Automate your minimum payments so that it happens every month without you even thinking about it.

Quick note: This would be a good time to look into your eligibility for income-driven repayment. Even if you can afford to pay more each month, enrolling in one of these repayment plans can give you added flexibility that may be valuable down the road.

Step 4: Maximize Your Employer Match

If your employer offers a match for contributions to your company retirement plan, you’ll want to contribute enough to get that full match.

Let’s say your employer matches 50% of your contribution up to 6% of your salary (pretty typical). That means that if you contribute 6% of each paycheck to your 401(k), your employer will contribute another 3%.

That’s a 50% immediate and guaranteed return on your investment every time you make a contribution. You won’t find that kind of return anywhere else, so it’s something you should take advantage of while you can.

Quick note: Your employer match may be subject to something called vesting, in which case that return wouldn’t be 100% guaranteed unless you meet certain requirements — for example, working at the company for at least five years. You can find out whether your company does this by asking your HR rep or reading the plan’s summary plan description.

Step 5: Prioritize High-Interest Debt

The first four steps here are pretty cut-and-dry. But this is where it starts to get a little less certain.

There isn’t a clear cut right path from this point forward, so the best you can do is understand the trade-offs between your various options and make the best decision for your specific goals and needs.

A good place to start is by targeting any high-interest student loans first. There’s no definitive cut-off point that defines “high interest,” but 7% is a good benchmark.

Here’s the reasoning:

• Over the long term, the stock market has produced an average return of about 9.5%. It’s been slightly lower recently though, and many experts expect long-term returns to be in the 7%-8% range going forward.
• Though the stock market has always gone up over the long term, it’s still not guaranteed and there will be many bumps along the way.
• Any extra payment toward debt with a 7% interest rate represents a guaranteed 7% return on investment.
• That guarantee, and the fact that it’s comparable to what you might expect from the stock market anyway, makes it hard to pass up.

One other option you have for dealing with high-interest loans is refinancing, but you need to be careful. Refinancing a private loan for a lower interest rate can make a lot of sense, but refinancing a federal loan means giving up a number of valuable protections. Just make sure you understand all the trade-offs before signing on the dotted line.

• Related: Student Loan Consolidation Guide

Step 6: Mix and Match

From this point on, instead of thinking about this decision as either/or, why not try both/and?

Take any extra money you have and put 50% toward your investments and 50% towards your student loans. That way you’re making steady progress toward being debt free AND taking advantage of the stock market.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be 50/50. It can be any proportion you want, and I would encourage you to think about the emotional impact of your decision in addition to the math. If one route would lead to more happiness or less stress in your life, don’t be afraid to tilt things in that direction.

Any Progress Is Good Progress

It’s stressful to have to pay down your student loans when you feel like you should be saving and investing. I know a lot of people who feel like their debt is making them fall further and further behind.

The key thing to remember is that investing and paying down debt are two sides of the same coin. Both efforts get you closer to financial independence, so any progress you’re making on either front is good progress.

Matt Becker is a fee-only financial planner and the founder of Mom and Dad Money, where he helps new parents take control of their money so they can take care of their families. His free book, The New Family Financial Road Map, guides parents through the all most important financial decisions that come with starting a family.

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I Cleaned My Whole House with Cheap Denture Cleanser — and It Worked

I just cleaned my whole house with Polident, and I’m never going back.

I heard I could use the effervescent denture cleanser to clean everything from coffee pots to toilets, and I wanted to put it to the test.

After all, replacing four or five different cleaners in my house with one $6 box of denture cleaning tablets could save a lot of money!

But how well could it work?

Turns out, it kind of blew my mind.

How to Save Money with Denture Cleanser

No one in my house uses dentures, a retainer or any other appliance one would typically clean with denture cleanser.

I bought it today just for household cleaning.

I picked up the Well at Walgreen’s store-brand denture cleanser comparable to Polident. An 84-tablet box of antibacterial, three-minute denture cleanser costs $5.49 in the store.

It worked on everything!

Here’s how I used denture cleanser around the house, and how much money I’d spend otherwise.

1. Toilet Bowl Cleaner

32-ounce Seventh Generation Toilet Bowl Cleaner: $2.99

Clean your toilet bowl by dropping a few tabs in the water. Some sites suggest you wait about 10-15 minutes for the tablets to act, then scrub as normal.

I used three fast-acting tabs, so I only waited about three minutes before scrubbing — and it was clean as a whistle!

At an estimated 10 uses per 32-ounce bottle, toilet bowl cleaner costs 30 cents per use. Three tablets of denture cleanser do the same job for 21 cents.

2. Sink Cleaner

26-ounce Seventh Generation All Purpose Cleaner: $2.99

After I saw how well denture cleanser cleaned the toilet, I was curious to see how far it could go. Would it have the same effect on the rest of the bathroom?

I filled the sink about halfway with warm water and dropped in two tabs. I let them effervesce for a few minutes, then wiped it clean.

It looked just as good as with the Lysol I typically use to clean the bathroom.

An estimated 26 uses per bottle of all-purpose cleaner means each time I clean the sink costs 12 cents. One tablet of denture cleanser does it for 7 cents.

3. Bathtub Cleaner

Next, I decided to tackle the bathtub — my least-favorite chore of all time.  I avoid this one like the plague that’s probably growing in the corners of my tub by now.

I know denture cleanser is meant to work while dentures and appliances are immersed and soaking in the cleansing bubbles.

Filling the toilet and sink had the same effect on their porcelain surfaces.

But I wasn’t about to fill my bathtub and drop in dozens of tablets. Instead, I decided to use just three tablets in a small bucket of warm water.

I didn’t expect it to work.

But. It. Worked.

I let the tablets effervesce for a minute or two, then slowly poured the water over the dirty bottom of my bathtub, with the drain plugged. I spread the water around lightly with a brush and let it sit for a few more minutes.

Then I scrubbed.

Nothing will make me enjoy cleaning a bathtub. But denture cleanser, at least, made it easier than I was expecting. I couldn’t believe it.

And instead of inhaling the smell of bleach and toxic chemicals the whole time, I was awash in the refreshing scent of mint.

It’s for your (fake) teeth, remember?

It also means denture cleanser ingredients are safe enough to come into contact with your mouth (though you should never ingest it and should be aware of a potential allergic reaction).

Conservatively, I’d estimate I use five times the all-purpose cleaner on the tub that I use on the sink, so that’s 60 cents per cleaning.

Three tablets of denture cleanser got my tub minty clean for just 21 cents.

4. Coffee Stain Remover

I used the denture cleanser on both my glass coffee pot and two ceramic coffee mugs. All were marked with stubborn coffee or tea stains.

It worked like a charm on the mugs. I filled each with warm water and dropped in one tab. I wiped them clean with a sponge after three minutes — good as new.

The denture cleanser was less effective on the glass carafe. Again, I filled it with warm water and used one tablet. It was certainly cleaner after three minutes, just not crystal clear.

I’ll probably continue to use vinegar on my coffee pot. It’s more effective, even though its scent is far from minty fresh.

For most other things — pots, pans, earbuds and other hard-to-clean items around the house — I’m converted to denture cleanser.

Your Turn: Have you used denture cleanser to for unusual household cleaning?

Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).

The post I Cleaned My Whole House with Cheap Denture Cleanser — and It Worked appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Cold-callers forced out from the shadows

Tom Wilson

cold-calling-madness.jpg

Telemarketers, payment protection insurance (PPI) claims handling companies, and other cold callers are no longer allowed to disguise or hide their phone numbers under new rules brought in today.

Telemarketers, payment protection insurance (PPI) claims handling companies, and other cold callers are no longer allowed to disguise or hide their phone numbers under new rules brought in today.

Companies must now display their numbers when calling consumers in the UK, even if they are based overseas.

read more

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The Lonely, Unusual Way This Guy Paid Off $25K in Student Loans in 9 Months

Robert Langellier just needed to pay off his student loans.

It was May 2014, and armed with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri, he drew up a plan.

For the next year he’d forget his aspirations to be a literary journalist.

Instead, he’d tuck himself away in his parents’ Springfield, Illinois, home and piece together an income with part-time odd jobs. He figured within a year he could pay off the nearly $25,000 he collectively owed to the government and his parents.

One of his first stabs at employment was as a waiter at a shiny new restaurant in town. On Langellier’s second day, he battled the (insert expletive here) point-of-sale machine.

Within an hour of his second shift, an owner pulled him aside and fired him. That was that.

Finding the Right Gig

Langellier went back to square one: Craigslist.

He’d been using the online classified site to look for odd jobs. In the midst of the freelance writing gigs and a glut of restaurant positions, he noticed an abundance of long-haul trucking jobs.

The more he thought about it, the more attractive hitting the road sounded.

Always up for an adventure, Langellier decided to take out one last $3,500 loan to pay for trucking school.

The Perks of Being a Truck Driver

Long-haul trucking is appealing on many levels when you break down the statistics (from the Bureau of Labor) and the logistics:

• Average median pay in 2014 was $19 an hour, nearly $40,000 per year.

• No experience is necessary, but a high school diploma is recommended and a commercial driver’s license (CDL) is required.

• Job training is short term and the industry is currently short 48,000 drivers.

• No rent

• No insurance payments

• No car payments

It’s also a free form of travel.

Langellier stopped in Denver; Kansas City, Missouri; Minneapolis; Oklahoma City; Memphis, Tennessee; St. Louis; and Wichita, Kansas to see old friends. He even stopped by his home in Springfield.

Once every three weeks, drivers are allowed a few days off. He used his to hike Yellowstone National Park, soak in New Mexico springs, explore New York City and work on an organic farm in Wisconsin.

Saving Money While Trucking

Langellier hit the road in October 2014.

Though there are some complicated pay calculations, Langellier basically earned 28-45 cents per mile. He drove an average of 8.5 hours a day — about 500 miles — and made a minimum of about $4,000 a month.

By April 2015, he’d paid off his last federal loan. By mid-July, he’d paid his parents back. But he continued to drive with the intention of stockpiling funds.

On his one-year trucking anniversary, he decided he’d had enough and turned in his keys with about $18,000 in the bank.

Next, he capitalized on his adventure by writing about it in Esquire and gaining a freelance gig.

The Pitfalls of Trucking

Before jumping into the driver’s seat, Langellier’s biggest piece of advice is to consider the downfalls of trucking.

Most notably, Langellier got pulled into these weird, inwardly reflective journeys — alone.

He spent most of his time trying not to run over cars, dodging debris in the road, talking to himself, counting the money he was making — and money he was still owed — and getting sidetracked with thoughts about the number of subways in the nation.

Although Langellier often opted to drive during the day, he was initially paired with a training partner who enjoyed nighttime drives. That’s when Langellier drifted off into a post-sleep, incoherent world — and into a field on the side of the road.

Not only was it mentally taxing, but he physically perched in a seat all day as he maneuvered a truck-full of anything from cat litter for PetSmart to mattresses for IKEA.

Langellier was young and more immune to these hardships, but truckers are known to have high obesity rates and have at least one chronic health risk, such as smoking or hypertension.

This could partly be due to the food available on the road. Piecing together meals at gas stations — think Zebra Cakes, Cheetos, hot dogs — wasn’t ideal.

Injuries aren’t uncommon either. Langellier remembers the time a 1,000-pound pallet of toilet paper fell on him.

Considering these factors, the 87% industry turnover rate makes sense.

Would You Try Trucking?

The gig certainly takes the right personality, Langellier says.

If the job sounds appealing, he suggests simply Googling “trucking school,” plus the city you live in. Schools typically work to place you with a company upon graduation (or, of course, you can just hit up Craigslist).

And if you like the idea of driving to pay off your student loans but aren’t too sure about all of those 18 wheels, consider these other driving jobs.

Your Turn: Have you ever driven a commercial truck? Did it help you save money or meet a financial goal?

Carson Kohler recently earned her master’s degree in journalism. Cut off from her parents, she is studying the art of The Penny Hoarder.

The post The Lonely, Unusual Way This Guy Paid Off $25K in Student Loans in 9 Months appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Small Biz Salute Celebrates Small Businesses

Sponsored by The UPS Store It’s no secret that running a small business is challenging. Small business owners are involved in every part of their business, and they give 110% in everything they do. To celebrate these hardworking small business owners, The UPS Store is launching its annual Small Biz Salute to bring together small […]

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Chestnuthill grocery store and shopping plaza planned

A large retail and commercial center, anchored by Gerrity's Supermarkets, is planned in Chestnuthill Township, along with an upgraded park and ride.Mount Effort Development Company, LLC of New Jersey hopes to build a 15-acre, 101,400 square foot collection of stores, offices and a transportation hub at the corner of route 115 and State Road in Mount Effort.Gerrity's is an upscale grocery store similar to Wegman's, developer Keith Beccia said. The store will have 45,000 square [...]

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Hundreds of properties for tax sale in Monroe County

About 500 properties in Monroe County will be offered for sale to the highest bidder Wednesday to satisfy back tax bills.The annual judicial tax sale is aimed at settling school, municipal and county property tax bills that are at least two years old. Current owners have until the time of sale, which begins at 10 a.m. at the Monroe County Administrative Center, to keep properties off the auction block by paying the back taxes.Nearly all parcels still listed on the Monroe County [...]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Buying Used Stuff

A few weeks ago, a family friend’s dog ate my four-year-old’s shoes. Then, a week later, the same dog ate my six-year-old’s shoes.

Within a span of eight days, two pairs of shoes were shredded beyond repair by the same dog near the front door at the same house.

But, was I mad? Absolutely not.

Our dog is 14 years old, deaf, and blind, so we aren’t used to guarding our property in the same way as other pet owners. So, in part, it was probably our fault for leaving our shoes out in the open in the first place.

But more importantly, those shoes weren’t worth crying over anyway – mainly because I paid around $4 total for both pairs.

The Magic of Buying Used

Since having children, I’ve fallen in love with buying used. With just a few exceptions (like cribs), almost everything you’d need for your kids can be found at a discount secondhand. When they were babies, Santa even got our kids used Christmas presents because he (ahem) knew they wouldn’t notice.

And now that they’re older, we save a lot of heartache at our house by mostly buying gently used items that cost a few bucks apiece. It’s magic I tell you, and not just because I’m cheap.

I actually think buying used makes life easier.

When you pay full price, it’s easy to get wrapped up in an item’s value. Your perfect new car gets a ding at the grocery store and you’re tempted to freak. Or, your kid spills chocolate syrup on their new white shirt and you’re instantly mad at them.

By buying used, you can avoid all the drama and stress, and instead use that energy on the things that matter most in life.

Four Reasons Buying Used Makes Life Easier

Buying used might come with a stigma among some people, but the benefits far outweigh any awkward moments you might experience. Here are just a few reasons buying nearly anything used is a good idea – both for our mental health and our long-term wealth.

Clothes get ruined, and you don’t have to care.

Kids ruin clothes; it’s an indisputable fact of life. They spill food on themselves while they eat, slide through the grass like it’s a slip-n-slide, and aren’t all that careful with markers or paint.

When all the clothes you buy are expensive, it’s easy to spend far too much time trying to prevent the inevitable stains that kids cause every day of their lives. But when you buy used, you can spend your time on something else. Why? Because you don’t have to care.

I’m not saying you should stop caring about your children’s clothes altogether. Even when you buy used, you can keep the family wardrobe clean and in good shape. But when your kid decides to color himself in with a marker, your stress levels will be markedly different if you paid $1 for the shirt instead of $40.

When you buy used, it’s much easier to shrug your shoulders and move on with your life.

• Related: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Free Kid’s Clothes

You don’t lose sleep when something breaks or gets damaged.

When you buy stuff new – and especially expensive stuff – it’s easy to spend a lot of time worrying about it. This is especially true when it comes to cars, furniture, and other big-ticket items that cost thousands of dollars.

But when you buy used (and pay a fraction of the price), you don’t lose sleep when life happens. If your cat scratches on the corner of your used couch, so what? You paid $200 for it, not $1,000. And when a bird treats your used car like a toilet, you can simply wash it off and carry on with your life.

The less you pay for something, the less stress you’ll endure when something bad happens to it. Obviously, this becomes even more true when we’re talking about items that are expensive to begin with.

• Related: The Best Used Cars for Simply Getting Around

Used stuff is infinitely cheaper.

Heartache aside, you can save oodles of money by buying most of your stuff used. And keeping more money in your pocket – or your savings account – is as surefire a way as any to make your life easier.

Used clothing, for example, can be found for as little as 1% of the retail price if you find a good garage sale or shop at Goodwill when it’s 50% off.  You can save even more if you’re willing to buy used cars, secondhand furniture, and housewares that have plenty of life left.

You might have to shop around to find exactly what you’re looking for, but that time will be worth it if you’re able to save big on nearly everything you buy. Websites like Craigslist.org are a great place to pick up these priceless gems, along with garage sales, consignment stores, and of course, thrift stores.

• Related: A Field Guide to Facebook Yard Sale Groups

You can usually sell used stuff for the same price you paid (and sometimes more).

One of the best parts about buying used stuff is the fact that you can often resell it for close to what you paid. As long as you keep it in good shape, you can usually get your money back – but that’s after you extract as much use and value out of it as you can.

I did this with almost all of my children’s clothes when they were really small. I bought the majority of their clothes at garage sales for 25 cents or 50 cents apiece, got plenty of wear out of them all, then resold them in subsequent garage sales as my children grew up.

And I absolutely did the same with all of their baby gear – the swings, the high chairs, and the cribs. In fact, I bought really fancy Bellini brand baby furniture for $500 off Craigslist when I was pregnant with my first child — and then turned around and sold it on Craigslist for $750 several years later.

Yes, if you buy quality items at a good price and take really good care of them, you can even turn a profit! And if not? Well, at least you didn’t pay a ton of money to begin with.

• Related: Beyond eBay: Six Better Ways to Buy, Sell, and Trade Stuff Online

The Bottom Line

The benefits of buying used are nearly limitless. In addition to saving money, you can also save yourself from a boatload of stress and worry. I’ve always felt that life was too short to worry about “stuff” anyway — which is why I don’t. But buying used makes it that much easier not to care too much.

Next time you find yourself stressing over a dent in your new car, a rip in your daughter’s expensive shirt, or a chewed-up pair of shoes, ask yourself if the initial cost was worth the stress you’re feeling. Chances are, the answer is no.

Do you buy used stuff? If so, what are the biggest benefits in your eyes?

Related Articles

• Two-Sided Coin: Should You Always Buy a Used Car?
• The Challenges of Buying Used and How to Overcome Them
• Do We Have Our Possessions Backwards? Some Thoughts on the Stuff We Own
• 10 Things You Shouldn’t Buy Used

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Would You Eat Roadkill to Save Money on Groceries?

Saving money on groceries is Penny Hoarding 101.

Your grocery bill is perhaps the most variable line item in your budget, and saving significant amounts of money doesn’t take too much time or effort — even if couponing isn’t your thing.

You can shop at a cheaper store, get rebates for stuff you’ve already bought and even try simple hacks like shopping with a basket instead of a cart.

If you’re more adventurous, you might try urban foraging or picking edible weeds — but would you be willing to eat roadkill to save money on meat?

Some people do.

Yes, for real. It’s actually totally legal in a lot of states.

But before you head out to the highway with a shovel, there’s some stuff you need to know.

… Really?

Listen, I know it sounds nuts.

But as you may know, meat’s expensive — even if you work hard to save money on it by shopping at wholesalers or using coupons.

Plus, the meat you buy in the grocery store can be a little gray — ethically speaking, that is.

Even if no amount of animal rights information would turn you vegan (in the words of my ex, “If cows didn’t want to be eaten, they shouldn’t have evolved to be so delicious”), it’s hard to ignore the huge, unnecessary carbon footprint of the typical American’s meat-heavy diet.

It takes 441 gallons of water to produce just one pound of boneless meat, according to a UC Davis study.

All of this to say nothing of the dangers of unsustainable factory farming — anyone remember Chipotle’s giant E. coli problem?

And forget grass-fed, free-range, antibiotic-and-hormone-free “happy meat.”

“If we raised all the cows in the United States on grass (all 100 million of them), cattle would require (using the figure of 10 acres per cow) almost half the country’s land (and this figure excludes space needed for pastured chicken and pigs),” the New York Times reports.

Leveling cities to turn half the country’s land into pasture is not exactly “sustainable.”

Road-killed meat is as “organic” as it gets — and it’s already dead, so you’re not contributing to any carbon footprint or animal rights problems. You’re simply eliminating waste.

Starting to sound a little less crazy? Keep reading.

Is It Legal to Eat Roadkill Where You Are?

Since you’re already going to be breaching some pretty well-entrenched cultural norms, it might be best not to breach the law, too.

If you’re bold enough to eat roadkill, the first thing you’ll want to establish is whether or not it’s actually legal where you live.

Laws vary by state. For instance, possession of roadkill is entirely illegal in Texas and California. It’s long been illegal in Washington state, too — although that’s set to change in July 2016.

Currently, maintenance workers are responsible for removing animal carcasses from the roadside. In some cases, the meat is donated to local Native American tribes.

Alaska also has a long-standing tradition of collecting road-killed moose meat for charity. It’s against the law for motorists to take it themselves.

But other states are more open-minded.

In Georgia, for example, you’re in the clear to collect the body of any native species — so long as you report road-killed black bears to the state.

In Ohio, you can collect deer, turkey, wild boars and feral hogs if you report them within 24 hours and get a permit.

States also distinguish between different types of animals and different body parts, which might not seem so strange when you consider the health concerns involved.

For instance, many big, hooved critters (think deer and elk) carry a neurological disorder called chronic wasting disease. So, some states place restrictions on their brains and nervous systems, if not their hides and antlers.

So the bottom line of the “Is it legal?” question is, “maybe, if you follow some rules.”

You’ll want to contact your state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife to get up-to-date information.

And while you’re busy Googling “chronic wasting disease”…

Is Eating Roadkill Safe?

Here’s the thing: If you didn’t dispatch a deer or rabbit with your own vehicle — or watch someone in your immediate vicinity mess up their car instead — you don’t know how long the meat’s been sitting there.

It’s significantly easier to assess the edibility of an animal if you’re, say, a hunter.

But if your interactions with dead animals have been limited to flushing goldfish and considering different pre-wrapped cuts at the supermarket, things might get a little hairy.
Literally.

Steven Rinella, hunter and author of “Meat Eater” — a chronicle about consuming wild game — made a useful suggestion to Missoulian magazine: If you find some roadkill that has fur, grab a handful and pull. If it comes off by the handful, maybe don’t make it into a stew.

Other warning signs include bloat, foul odor and swarming flies, but you’re facing a whole host of invisible risks, too.

Your critter might be infected with pathogens like E. coli, toxoplasmosis or worms — or the impact might’ve caused internal bleeding and spoiled the meat.

So the safety of road-killed meat is a little up in the air. And I don’t mean because you just hit it and sent it flying.

What Do You Do With Roadkill?

If you’re sure your roadkill’s of the highest and most edible quality, it’s time to make a commitment: Most states’ laws won’t allow you to take only parts of the animal.

You’re gonna have to lug the whole thing home and butcher it yourself.

Luckily, there are resources to help you figure it out — this is apparently a scenario people ask the internet about all the time. (Warning: the link is not for the faint of heart. Or those of you on your lunch break.)

You’ll want to complete this operation — and prepare or freeze the meat — as quickly as possible after the animal’s death to keep it fresh.

Speaking of preparation, are you finding yourself a little nervous about your opossum’s flavor?

You might want to get your hands on a quality wild game cookbook, as opposed to roadkill-specific ones, which are usually meant as a joke.

But you won’t necessarily need to go in for the masking powers of strong herbs and garlic.

Lots of road-killed meat is delicious, according to Jonathan McGowen — and he should know. He’s been eating it since he was 14.

Here’s what he told The Guardian:

“Rabbit is actually quite bland. Fox is far tastier; there’s never any fat on it, and it’s subtle, with a lovely texture, firm but soft. It’s much more versatile than beef, and has a salty, mineral taste rather like gammon. Frogs and toads taste like chicken and are great in stir-fries. Rat, which is nice and salty like pork, is good in a stir-fry, too – I’ll throw in celery, onion, peppers and, in autumn, wild mushrooms I’ve collected. Badger is not nice and hedgehog is hideous.”

So there you have it.

Next time you hit a fox or find the remnants of someone’s unfortunate run-in with a deer, you might consider your grocery trip finished.

No need to invite me over for dinner, though.

Your Turn: Would you eat roadkill? Let us know in the comments. Seriously, we want to know.

Jamie Cattanach (@jamiecattanach) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. The most exotic meat she’s ever eaten is ostrich, and that was at a Fuddruckers, so basically she has no sense of adventure.

The post Would You Eat Roadkill to Save Money on Groceries? appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Parker leads trend in litigating collaborative divorce

Monroe County attorney Mary Louise Parker, founder of Mary Louise Parker, Esq. & Associates in Stroudsburg, has successfully represented members of the Northeastern Pennsylvania community in aspects of family law for more than three decades but has gotten involved in a trend in divorce that is new to Monroe County for the past year: collaborative divorce.Parker is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association Collaborative Law Committee and has extensive experience in divorce, [...]

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New convenience allows for linking, monitoring accounts on smartphone

Wayne Bank is rolling out a mobile card management application that helps reduce fraud by allowing cardholders to monitor accounts with their smartphone and control how, when and where their debit card is used.CardValet was developed in partnership with Fiserv and is available in the Apple App Store or Google Play. Once CardValet is set up, cardholders can “turn off” their card when not in use, establish transaction spending limits and decline a transaction when the [...]

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Beilman, Ames recognized in 40-Year Club

The Dime Bank and several Dime Bank employees were recognized for various achievements at the Pennsylvania Bankers Association Spring Summit meeting held on April 14 in Scranton. The Dime Bank President and CEO Gary C. Beilman, a Hawley resident, and Sandy J. Ames, loan officer at The Dime Bank who lives in Honedale, were recognized for serving 40 or more years in the banking industry. The 40-Year Club consists of bankers completing 40 or more years of service in [...]

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Laurel Villa event showcases blend of finest wines, food

She finds an unusual wine. He concocts a meal to complement it. Such is the recent collaborative endeavor of Janice Halstead and Carl Muhlhauser, owners of Laurel Villa Country Inn on 210 Second St., in Milford.Known for years as the Laurel Villa and then for a while briefly as the River Rock Inn under the same owners but a different manager Ken Pisciotta from 2011 to last year, it has reclaimed its old name and some of that dynamic.Halstead huddles with wine or spirit makers [...]

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Pocono Mountain West grad among first females to join infantry

A Pocono Mountain West graduate has made U.S. Military history.

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Long overdue

“Clearly 27 years is far too long” to go without a comprehensive reassessment, Monroe Commissioner John Moyer said.

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Inspiration from E.B. White, C.S. Lewis,The Avett Brothers, and More

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life.

1. E.B. White on enjoying life versus improving life

“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” – E.B. White

That quote is spot-on accurate, and it also is true when you turn it inward. Often, we have a stark choice between improving ourselves and enjoying ourselves, too, and it’s rare to be able to do both.

We go to work to improve our financial state and, sometimes, ourselves, but it’s not that often that we actually enjoy ourselves in the process. On the other hand, most of the leisure we take on in our lives does a great job of helping us enjoy the world… but it doesn’t do much at all to improve the world.

To make things even harder, it’s often true that if you commit yourself to more effort to improving yourself and improving the world, you often discover that there’s much more to enjoy in the world and that you have more energy and ability to enjoy all of it. Yet, that means less enjoyment time in the now. Think of studying to try to earn an A in a class, for example, or spending several hours cleaning up a park in your neighborhood.

This, to me, is one of the real challenges of modern life. How do you balance improving the world/yourself with enjoying the world/yourself? If you give too much to enjoying the world/yourself, you sacrifice the ability to do so in the future as you’re not giving ample time and energy to building a better world, building skills, or building a career. On the other hand, if you give too much to improving the world/yourself, you’re not enjoying life.

White really expresses the challenge of that balance well. Every morning, when we roll out of bed, we have to choose between those things, and it’s never easy.

2. Omnifocus

After reading about my trials and tribulations with various free to-do list software packages, an extremely kind reader purchased a copy of this brilliant piece of software for me. The standard version is a $40 expense, and it’s another $40 if you want a mobile version, so it’s not something that had ever been on my radar up to this point. I focused on free solutions to this problem instead.

Now I wish I hadn’t.

Omnifocus is far and away the best to-do list manager on the market, at least for my needs. It absolutely nails everything I want to do – project creation, subtasks, flexible views, and so on.

The only caveat is the price… but here’s the catch. Most of the other to-do list services I’ve used – namely Todoist and Remember the Milk – have a “pro” mode that does cost money, and to have a feature set that’s anywhere close to Omnifocus (and still doesn’t match it), you have to pay for a year’s worth of their “pro” mode. A couple of years of that and you might as well have purchased Omnifocus.

Freemium software can be really good, but sometimes the best solution is to just pay for what you need. On the other hand, sometimes paid software doesn’t really match your needs to begin with, which is why it’s usually a good idea to give highly rated software a spin if they offer a trial version. I didn’t do that with Omnifocus because I didn’t want to pay the cost. Now that I realize that other options often had a higher long-term cost for their full versions, I regret not jumping on board sooner.

3. Harbhajan Singh Khalsa on the behavior of others

“If you are willing at look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.” – Harbhajan Singh Khalsa

I think we’ve all experienced it. You’re out and about and someone is needlessly negative toward you. Someone yells at you. Someone is critical of you out of the blue.

That kind of thing can sting. Sometimes it makes you angry. Sometimes it really hurts. Sometimes the comment digs deep and stays with you for a while.

Don’t let that happen.

The truth of the matter is that an angry person on the street is often angry at something that has nothing to do with you and is just looking for a target to blow off steam, and so they turn something completely unnecessary into an angry moment. Sometimes people are deeply dissatisfied with their own lives and don’t know how to process it, so they turn that dissatisfaction into incredibly negative commentary of others. Sometimes, people are struggling with mental or physical ailments you don’t see. Sometimes people are just having a bad day.

Those things aren’t your fault, and the comments that they produce toward you aren’t rational. They actually have almost nothing at all to do with you – I mean, you do happen to be there, but the negativity isn’t a reflection on you in any way.

So just ignore it. Let it be. It means nothing, other than that the angry or negative person is dealing with something in their own life, and it’s not something you can help with. So just walk on.

4. Astro Teller on celebrating failure

From the description:

“Great dreams aren’t just visions,” says Astro Teller, “They’re visions coupled to strategies for making them real.” The head of X (formerly Google X), Teller takes us inside the “moonshot factory,” as it’s called, where his team seeks to solve the world’s biggest problems through experimental projects like balloon-powered Internet and wind turbines that sail through the air. Find out X’s secret to creating an organization where people feel comfortable working on big, risky projects and exploring audacious ideas.

The core idea here is this: a failure is completely fine as long as you learn something valuable from the failure that you can apply to your next project or attempt. It is 100% okay to fail.

Why doesn’t the entire world work like that, then?

The big reason is that the business that Teller is describing has a lot of margin for failure. A large profitable company like Google can afford a $5 million project ending in failure and not skip a beat, whereas a smaller company or one with tighter restraints might not be able to tolerate that kind of failure.

The same goes for day-to-day lives. Some people can tolerate those kinds of failures in their lives because they’ve put in the time and effort to build up a big emergency fund. They have resources that will keep things going if they fail. Others don’t have it, so they can’t afford failure.

To me, this is a great argument for living way below your means and putting money in the bank. That way, in a little while, you can take a big risk… and if it fails, you won’t fall apart and you’ll ideally learn some valuable lessons from the failure.

5. Mia Birdsong on success

“I’m tired of the story we tell that hard work leads to success. Because that story allows those of us who make it to believe we deserve it, and by implication those who don’t make it don’t deserve it.” – Mia Birdsong

Hard work is a crucial ingredient in success… but it is not the only ingredient in success. Far from it.

Take the person who has nothing versus the person that has $20 million in the bank. Which one is more likely to launch a successful restaurant? While the person with nothing might be able to win out if they have an incredible work ethic and the other one is lazy, the reality is that the person with the cash is most likely to wind up on top here. That person has resources, while the other person does not.

Hard work is vital. So is money in the bank. So are relationships. So is your reputation. So is your plan.

A person with a great work ethic and the best idea in the world might fall flat on their face because they didn’t have a great reputation, they didn’t have good relationships, and they didn’t have money in the bank. A person with a mediocre idea and a mediocre work ethic might succeed because they had those things.

Hard work is a big key, but it’s not the only key.

6. The Avett Brothers – Ain’t No Man

I’ve made no secret of my love for The Avett Brothers. Their music has inspired me constantly through the last ten years of my life.

I’ll be honest – I did not like this song at first. It did not click with me at all and left me feeling pretty disappointed about their musical direction.

But, as with countless other songs by them, the song found its way into my head and then, eventually, my soul. It wormed in deep. I found myself humming it and thinking about it and then, before long, playing it on repeat.

That’s what good music does. It burrows deep inside of you and pops out when you least expect it. The Avett Brothers do that consistently for me.

7. C.S. Lewis on integrity

“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” ― C.S. Lewis

I have a love-hate relationship with our family dog.

I did not want a dog in the first place. I still don’t want a dog in our home. I don’t want the responsibility of caring for one. I don’t want the smells or the stains. I definitely don’t want the barking, as I value a quiet home during the day. I don’t want to have to interrupt work to convince a dog to quiet down or to take him on a walk, which is something that’s been foisted on me as part of this package.

Most days, it’s just me and the dog alone. I find him really frustrating at times, especially when he starts barking at a dog that’s being walked near our home. I don’t want to have to stop walking to let him out.

This could build a lot of negative feelings over time, and I’ll be the first to admit that there are days when I get really frustrated with this. It’s a responsibility I didn’t want that was just handed to me.

But I do let him out in the back yard a few times a day. I do walk him. I do make sure he has food and water. I do play with him – he loves to play a game where I stomp on the ground with one foot and then he’ll actually chase that foot for a while.

And, as I write this, the dog I didn’t want is curled up by my foot.

If I didn’t have integrity, I might treat the dog differently. I wouldn’t be cruel to him, but I could see myself putting him in a kennel in the garage or something like that, with food and water available, but far enough away that I couldn’t hear his barking and didn’t have to deal with him. That wouldn’t be any different than what many people do with their dogs during the work day.

But here’s the thing: because I do this, I genuinely think this dog has a happier life, and because of that, he plays much more joyfully with my children when they come home from school. He also barks far less than when we first adopted him.

Integrity plays a role. The things you do when no one else is around really do have an impact on your life when others are around.

8. Aeschylus on success without envy

“Few men have the natural strength to honor a friend’s success without envy.” – Aeschylus

Sometimes, it can be really hard to admire the success of others. You see someone else achieving success – especially when you’ve seen that person really mess up in the past – and you can’t help but wonder why you didn’t get that success.

For starters, success is partially luck. It’s also the result of a wide mix of traits and character attributes. Your friend likely has some character attributes – positive ones – that you may not have. Perhaps your friend is easier in social situations than you are. Maybe they have a great work ethic if they can direct it toward something.

It’s a sign of great character if you can simply step back and be happy for your friend when they do achieve success.

9. Humans Need Not Apply

This, right here, is my number one concern for the future. As technology improves, more and more and more and more jobs that humans used to do are going to be done by machines, until it reaches the point that only highly skilled humans in a very small number of fields will actually have meaningful work to do.

Imagine, if you will, a world where there are lots of jobs available, but only about 10% (or less) of the people on earth actually have the capabilities of doing those jobs. What happens then?

It’s a question we don’t like to think about, but it’s a very, very important one, because it’s coming.

Here’s the reality: the devil finds work for idle hands to do. If you have a large percentage of the world’s population without any opportunity to work, there’s going to be a lot of unrest, and we’ll end up knocking ourselves back from many of the benefits of life.

A much better approach, I think, is basic income and an encouragement of the arts. That keeps people who perhaps aren’t wired well for the narrow technical fields that will be needed to be able to find positive ways to have an impact in the world – and keep the others, the malcontents, from breaking everything.

10. Khleo Thomas on slights

“If they don’t know you personally, don’t take it personal.” – Khleo Thomas

This touches on the quote from Harbhajan Singh Khalsa above, in that if someone out of the blue says something negative toward you, it often has very little to do with you. Thus, it doesn’t make much sense to take it personally.

Most of the time, when someone I don’t know fires off some negative thought toward me, I assume that it has far more to do with them than it does with me. Over the years, I’ve built up a pretty decent capacity for telling when there’s genuine criticism and when someone is venting – and it’s usually venting.

The trick is not letting it bother you. Negativity is going to happen. It’s a part of our world. Don’t let it seep inside and poison your inner garden.

11. Adam Grant on the surprising habits of original thinkers

From the description:

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies “originals”: thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals — including embracing failure. “The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they’re the ones who try the most,” Grant says. “You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.”

While this video definitely touches upon the idea above that failure is a normal and healthy part of eventually achieving success, it’s not the only ingredient that Grant identifies as being part of a successful creative process.

One of them is procrastination. Grant points out that many people come up with their best ideas under pressure, and it’s something I’ve noticed to an extent, too. Actually, what happens under pressure is that I usually use the first good idea I have and then start actually executing that idea. Without the pressure of procrastination, I’m likely to discard that idea and wait for an amazing one.

For me, the real lesson here is to do something. Take that good idea and give it a shot. Don’t wait around for the perfect idea because it may or may not ever come and life will pass you by while you wait. Instead, take action on the good idea now.

12. Bertrand Russell on stupidity

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” – Bertrand Russell

I often tell people that I know far less today than I’ve known since I was an infant. That’s not entirely true. It’s not that I’ve forgotten or unlearned a bunch of things. It’s that, more than ever before, I know how little I know compared to the vastness of human knowledge and experience that others have. The knowledge that I possess just scratches the surface.

Because of that, it becomes much harder for me to make blanket statements about other groups and to apply a blunt negative approach to them. I don’t know how a lot of people live. I don’t know what experiences they’ve had or what they’ve learned in their life or how they feel. All I can know is my own experiences and what I’ve learned and how I feel, which might not overlap with them too much.

Because of that, I move more and more toward a sense that the laws of the land should be non-obstructionist. They should penalize situations where people harm others, but they should offer tons of space for people to do their own thing. What someone else does independently of me is their own choice and does not impact what I choose to do with my life. That ends when they try to directly harm me or to directly harm something that I share with them (like the environment).

What frustrates me about the world is when people who know nothing about what they’re talking about come in and demand certain nonsensical changes and won’t even have a rational discussion about the changes they propose. If you point out a hole in it, they either lock down and ignore you, respond with taunts or other attacks that have nothing to do with the issue, or endlessly repeat the same two or three unfounded talking points that they know about the issue.

The reality is that every single human endeavor is imperfect. They all have holes in it. I’m the last person to know what the “best” solution is, but I can see that even the things I support have some “holes” in them. The difficulty comes when people disavow that their preferred ideas have flaws and won’t even talk about it.

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This Husband’s “I Love You Money” Isn’t Just a Romantic Gesture

I’ve always assumed life insurance was:

A) boring

B) unnecessary

C) only for rich people

But I just read a blog post that may have changed my mind.

Dr. Beard, the blogger behind Beards & Money, calls life insurance “money that says ‘I love you’ to your family beyond the grave.”

How Does Life Insurance Work Anyway?

There are two main types of life insurance: term and whole.

With term, you make monthly payments for a set amount of time — often 20 years — and if you die within that period, your beneficiary receives a lump sum of money. If you live past the pre-negotiated term, the insurance company keeps the money.

“I have a 20-year, $500,000 term life insurance policy that I started when I was 30 years old,” Beard explains.

“If I die before I’m 50 years old, my wife will receive half a million dollars, completely tax free,” he says. “We pay less than $30 per month.”

The assumption is in 20 years you’ll have savings and assets that can provide for your family — so term insurance is “an inexpensive way of providing financial security” in the meantime, explains The Motley Fool’s Matthew Frankel.

Whole life insurance, on the other hand, lasts as long as you stay alive, but the premiums are often 10-20 times more expensive than term policies.

Though I encourage you to do your own research, the consensus seems to be term life insurance is the better choice for young people with families.

“Dollar for dollar, term gives you the most protection for your money,” says personal finance website Kiplinger.

“Basically, I’m investing a total of $7,000 over 20 years to absolutely insure that my family is provided for if I die,” Beard explains. “That’s a GREAT deal.”

And he encourages you to do the same.

“If you don’t have a significant net worth, and particularly if you have a family, then you need to stop reading this silly little blog RIGHT NOW and go buy a term life insurance policy,” he writes.

He recommends SelectQuote (and no, that’s not an affiliate link from either of us).  

Why “I Love You Money” is Important

You work hard to provide for your family while you’re alive — and I’m guessing you’d want to do the same if you were to unexpectedly die.

Beard’s wife is a stay-at-home mom, and if he dies, he wants her to keep her job.

“I want her to have the freedom to continue to stay home, and to keep her and my children’s lives moving along as normally as possible,” he writes.

“So I have built a pile of ‘I love you money’ that should allow her to do just that.”

And it’s a pretty decent pile.

If Beard died tomorrow — after factoring in a paid-off house and retirement savings — his wife would have a net worth of $772,000, allowing her to withdraw around $31,000 per year for life.

It might not sound like a lot, but the Beards are already a frugal family, and his hypothetical budget shows, at least financially, her lifestyle wouldn’t really change.

With just $30 a month, $7.50 a week or $1 a day, Beard can rest assured he’s provided for his family.

Even if both you and your partner work outside the home, an unexpected death would drastically reduce your household income. So, in my opinion, life insurance still seems worth it — especially if you have kids.

As Beard says: “I love you, honey. I had enough sense to cut back a latte or two per week so that you could be financially set forever if I should die.”

And really, what’s more romantic than that?

Your Turn: Do you have life insurance?

Susan Shain, senior writer for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.

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