Port Jervis preps for posthumous homecoming of vet

PORT JERVIS, N.Y. — The city is wrapping its arms around the family of Pfc. William Vito Giovanniello, whose body has been identified 65 years after he died in battle during the Korean War.Individuals and groups have begun making and placing "welcome home" bows around the community, in anticipation of the pending homecoming of Giovanniello's remains.Resident Debbie Abraham Ford made an online post on social media the morning after the news was released, and [...]

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Port Jervis preps posthumous salute to returning veteran

PORT JERVIS, N.Y. — The city is wrapping its arms around the family of Pfc. William Vito Giovanniello, whose body has been identified 65 years after he died in battle during the Korean War. Individuals and groups have begun making and placing "welcome home" bows around the community, in anticipation of the pending homecoming of Giovanniello's remains.Resident Debbie Abraham Ford made an online post on social media the morning after the news was released, and [...]

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Vigon owner joins ownership group

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders announced the addition of three members to their ownership group Wednesday afternoon at PNC Field.Former All-Star pitcher Andy Ashby led the group along with Charles Cohen, managing director and owner of Benco Dental Company, and Steve Somers, president and owner of Vigon International in Monroe County.Somers bought Vigon International, a flavor, fragrance and cosmetic company, in 1998.Along with his ownership role, Ashby will be the [...]

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Lackawanna College announces Conservation and Natural Resource Officer program

Scranton — Lackawanna College is accepting applications for their Conservation and Natural Resource Officer Certificate Program. This one-year, dual-certificate program combines the Lackawanna College Police Academy with a 16-credit, undergraduate level, environmental semester at the Lackawanna College Environmental Education Center in Covington Township. The program is set to begin spring 2017.The CNRO program will prepare students for entry-level Natural Resource Ranger [...]

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Inside the iHome: Apple helps builders pitch gizmo-packed houses

In a darkened master bedroom, David Kaiserman stood in shirtsleeves next to a turned-down king bed. "Good morning, Siri," he said to the iPad in his hand, and the lights went on while the blackout shades retracted."Your home is ready to rise and shine," the virtual assistant replied.Inside this four-bedroom stucco house in Alameda, California, Kaiserman, president of the technology division at construction company Lennar Corp., was pitching a vision of a home controlled via [...]

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How to Stay Motivated When You’re Already Debt-Free

When my husband and I finally fought our way to debt freedom, it was a huge relief. Where we once had a ton of bills to pay and keep track of, we were finally down to living expenses only – things like our mortgage, groceries, and utilities. And while money stress had once been a fixture of our daily lives, after paying off our last dollar of non-mortgage debt, our financial situation became crystal clear and effortless overnight.

Debt-free for only a few days, we began mapping out our future. Our core group of short-term goals included bumping up our college savings, investing even more for retirement, and starting targeted savings accounts for emergencies and rainy days. Beyond those objectives, we also wanted to retire early, pay for our children’s college educations in their entirety, and avoid ever falling into the trap of debt again.

The feeling of debt freedom was absolutely wonderful, and we were so excited about our future. Instead of spending our free time plotting our way out of debt, we could finally dream and plan for the debt-free future we really wanted.

Unfortunately, the excitement waned off and on from there. And in a lot of ways, our dream of debt freedom became more of a let-down. Up until that point, we had been working toward something tangible – paying off all our bills. And honestly, paying off debt had actually become “fun” somewhere along the way. Not only were we working together as a team, but it was exciting to work toward real goals and watch our progress as the months ticked by.

But, what now? Somehow, the idea of saving for retirement and college – both decades away at that point – wasn’t nearly as exciting or immediately rewarding.

Three Ways We Stay Motivated in the Absence of Debt

Fortunately, we had an epiphany along the way – all the work we were doing wasn’t about today; it was about the long game. The reason we became debt-free in the first place was to provide a better life for our children and ourselves in retirement, not to make our lives easier while we’re young.

We finally realized something else, too – getting out of debt wasn’t enough. To make our debt-free lifestyle meaningful, we had to put our dollars to use and stay on track with our goals for a lifetime. While this isn’t always easy, we eventually found a few strategies that make long-term financial goals fun and exciting in the absence of paying off debt.

#1: We use a zero-sum budget.

One of the most productive hours we spend every month is the time we set aside to create that month’s zero-sum budget. In case you’re not familiar with this form of budgeting, a zero-sum budget requires you to spend all of your month’s income on paper until it’s gone. The kicker is, you put your extra funds toward savings, debt repayment, and investments.

Since we fell in love with this strategy, zero-sum budgeting has changes our lives in so many ways. First, it forces us to allocate each dollar we earn to something – with overages allotted to savings and investments now that we’re debt-free. Second, budgeting each month makes us painfully aware of lifestyle creep, and how our spending habits change over time.

Lastly, creating a budget each month reinforces the idea that we should discuss our money together regularly. When my husband and I sit down to create our budget, we talk about our financial goals, our concerns, our planned spending for that month. Keeping the communication lines open has been a huge part of our financial process, and budgeting each month has helped in that respect.

• Related: How and Why to Use a Zero-Sum Budget

#2: We set our finances on auto-pilot.

Without any debt, my husband and I are in the position to max our out retirement accounts and invest every month. We’re also prepaying on our rental properties so they’re mortgage-free that much sooner.

Over time, we’ve found the best way to work toward these goals seamlessly is to set our finances up on auto-pilot as much as we can. What that means is, a certain amount of money is automatically contributed to certain accounts and mortgage payoff every month without us having to do it manually. In a lot of ways, this allows our extra money to stay “out of sight and out of mind,” too. We may technically have extra money leftover every month, but I’m rarely tempted to spend it – because I never see it!

The best part about automating your finances is that it doesn’t take long to set up. Spend a couple of hours on your bank’s website and you can likely automate your entire investing and savings strategy.

• Related: 10 Ways to Trick Yourself Into Saving Money

#3: We celebrate small wins and milestones.

When your real financial goals are decades away, it can be hard to stay on track or even care about when you’ll get there. One way we stay on track is creating “mini-goals” along the way. Not only do we create small, short-term goals and reach them all the time, but we celebrate them when we do.

This has helped us stay motivated, and added some “fun” back into the equation as well. Perhaps I’ve become a money nerd, but I still find it exciting when we hit certain financial milestones.

Here’s an example: In the absence of debt, we’ve been trying to prepay the principle on the rental properties we bought in our 20s as quickly as possible. Each time we pay off another $5,000 in mortgage payments (which takes a while), we celebrate with a fancy dinner out.

That’s just one example, but the point is, we’ve created a system of smaller goals to work toward each year. With these small goals always on the horizon, we’re able to keep our eye on the prize without getting bored or letting lifestyle inflation take hold.

Final Thoughts

Getting out of debt is a huge accomplishment, but it’s easy to squander your progress if you don’t change your mindset and keep up your financial intensity. For us, a series of strategies that include creating mini-goals, budgeting, and setting our finances on auto-pilot has helped us remain debt-free and continue saving.

Keeping our minds on our long-term goals has also been helpful. Even though we’re only in our 30s, we’ve learned to ask ourselves how we want our future to look all the time. How do we want our lives to look in 20, 30, or even 40 years? Asking that question over and over helps us keep things in perspective, and could do the same for you.

It may be hard to stay motivated when your real goals are decades away, but it can be done. Like anything else, long-term financial success requires confidence, self-restraint, and grit.

Holly Johnson is an award-winning personal finance writer who is obsessed with frugality, budgeting, and travel. She blogs at ClubThrifty.com and teaches others how to write online at EarnMoreWriting.com.

Related Articles

• What’s Next After Debt Freedom?
• 10 Strategies for Staying Motivated Toward Your Financial (and Other) Goals
• 11 Ways to Get Out of Debt Faster
• It’s Not ‘Early Retirement,’ It’s ‘Walk Away’ Money

How do you stay motivated when your goals are far away? Are there any special strategies you use to stay on track?

The post How to Stay Motivated When You’re Already Debt-Free appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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This Teacher Used YouTube to Make $120K Last Year — Here’s How She Did It

Gabby Wallace always had a thirst to see the world.

That’s why she began teaching English as a Second Language (ESL); she knew it was a career that would allow her to travel.

But she never expected she’d stumble upon a business that would allow her to keep teaching and traveling — and occasionally earn the equivalent of her former salary in a single week.

It’s all thanks to a little platform called YouTube…

An “Accidental Business”

Wallace, who has a master’s degree in education, had been teaching ESL for five years when she decided to make “bite-size” videos to help her students in Japan.  

“It was almost an accidental business that I created,” she says. “No funding, no investors, no business plan. I just wanted to help my students more.”

At this point, she had no technical experience and no equipment — only a laptop and a smartphone.

“I didn’t even know how to edit,” she says. “I actually have my first videos up still on YouTube, where you can see me turning the camera on and off. It’s really embarrassing, but I leave those up there because it’s sort of a reminder that you can do this even with very little training.”

Her students responded well to the videos, so she continued to make them — even after moving back to the U.S. to teach at a university.

Six months in, a little box popped up on YouTube that said: “Yes, I would like to be able to monetize my videos.” She clicked it.

And slowly, the money started to trickle in.

“Honestly, seeing the first few cents and the first few dollars come in just amazed me,” she says. “I was like, ‘This is possible; oh my gosh, it works.’”

Though it wasn’t enough to support her, it felt good. (For most people, the earnings might’ve covered coffee expenses — but Wallace notes: “I drink a lot of coffee.”)

Due to the rising popularity of her videos, she began to receive requests from students who wanted to take Skype lessons with her. So she started doing those as well.

She dedicated 15 hours each week (on top of her full-time teaching job) to her channel and students, earning about $50-$100 per week.

“I had a lot of doubts about the time that I was spending on it,” she admits. “Like, is it really worth it?”

She Goes All In — and It Pays Off

Then, in early 2014, Wallace says, “I just realized I couldn’t not do it.”

She’d been on YouTube for three years and had 10,000 subscribers. She was still doing one-on-one English lessons, and couldn’t grow her business because she only had “so many hours in the day.”

So she added a new tool to her arsenal: a video course, complete with lessons, quizzes and exclusive content not available on her YouTube page.

Because the course was on-demand and didn’t depend on her time, she calls it “a huge turning point.”

Wallace also got lucky: YouTube provided her a free mentor, a service it offers to select creators. She met with him once a week to learn strategies for growing her subscriber base and earnings.

Soon, she went from 10,000 subscribers and earnings of $200-$300 per month to 100,000 subscribers and a “decent income.”

Her biggest success? A joint sale with other English teachers that brought in $45,000 in a week — 10% of which was donated to Pencils of Promise.

When she saw those numbers, she cried.

“I’d never even made that much in a month being an English teacher, and I never imagined I’d be able to give back that much,” she explains. “It was like whoa.”

These days, Wallace can command $1,000 in sponsorship for a five-minute video on her channel.

To create five or six of these of these, it takes her about three hours: one to prepare, one to film and one to edit.

Though that’s a pretty incredible hourly rate, Wallace actually makes the vast majority of her income from her downloadable courses — literally a way to “make money while you sleep,” she says.

Between her courses, YouTube ad revenue and sponsorships, she earned $120,000 last year ($25,000 of which went to overhead costs like web hosting and contractors).  

All while working on her schedule, from anywhere with an internet connection — she traveled to 20 countries last year!

Wallace’s 5 Top YouTube Tips

If you’re hoping to emulate Wallace’s success with a YouTube channel of your own, don’t miss her tips for growing with — and making money with — the platform.

1. Think About Your Skills

What are you good at? What could you teach?

“Think about what knowledge or skills you have,” Wallace says, “and you can create assets from nothing.”

Though Wallace had never created videos before, she knew her strength and background was in teaching — and she used that to create her biz.

2. Offer Value for Free

Wallace attributes much of her success to the fact she started by “giving so much value on my channel for free.”

You want people to see you’re an expert and that you want to help, she says. If you start selling stuff too quickly, and your viewers think you’re in it just to make money, she warns you’ll “turn them off.”

Instead, she advises you “start out giving” and “trying to be of service.”

3. Create a Community

I hate to break it to you, but you probably won’t find success by just uploading videos to the platform — no matter how good they are.

“It really is about growing your audience, and interacting with them,” says Wallace. “You have to see them as a community.”

4. Diversify Your Income

Despite Wallace’s massive following, her YouTube ad revenue only makes up a small portion of her income — which is why she recommends having multiple income streams.

“Even if you do have a lot of views and you’re making good money from YouTube ads and stuff, you see a lot of the most famous creators actually selling merchandise on their websites,” she says. “Selling t-shirts or selling other stuff, or maybe they have affiliate links to products.”

Oh, and if you see a product in a video, she notes “it’s probably sponsored.”

5. Collaborate with Others

Though some might’ve looked at other online English teachers as competitors, Wallace took the opposite approach.

“Honestly, we all benefit so much from collaborating, whether it’s simply sharing each other’s links, doing a collaborative video or interviewing each other on a podcast,” she says. “That’s been just a huge source of not only income — but growing our respective communities.”

And, though she didn’t mention it, I’ll add one more tip: Be patient.

It took Wallace three years of hustling on the side (and five years of teaching ESL prior) before she started to earn a full-time living from her business. That’s a lot of sacrificed nights and weekends out.

Sure, she has a life many of us would dream of now — but she’s worked hard for it.

And her only regret? That she didn’t do it sooner.

Looking back, Wallace says her biggest mistake was “not believing in myself, not being confident… and not mentally going all in.”

Your Turn: Do you want to earn money on YouTube? Check out Wallace’s website, where she offers several YouTube courses.

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.

The post This Teacher Used YouTube to Make $120K Last Year — Here’s How She Did It appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Mount Airy table game revenues fall

Table games revenues at Mount Airy Casino Resort fell in September while the state’s overall table game revenues rose.Mount Airy Casino Resort’s revenues from table game play dropped 2.1 percent in September to $3.86 million versus $3.94 million in Sept. 2015, according to figures released by Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.Slots games account for the bulk of gaming revenues and those were up almost 4 percent for the month. That brought the casino’s total [...]

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102-year-old Middle Smithfield voter marks 18th presidential election

It was 1936, a presidential election year.In June of that year, while campaigning for his second consecutive term in office, President Franklin Roosevelt named Mary McLeod Bethune the director of the National Youth Administration's Council of Negro Affairs, making her the first black woman to receive a presidential appointment and the highest-ranking black official in his administration.This news wasn't lost on many African-Americans including 21-year-old Christine Adams of [...]

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Deeds Done, Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016

Chestnuthill TownshipNestor F. and Emilia A. Valdes to Kristopher and Lindsey Dorshimer, Lot 36, Mountain Terrace Estates, $215,000Eldred TownshipRichard Samuel and Karen Paciotti to Brenton A. and Megan K. Le-Doux, Lot 119, Sky View Acres, $259,900Jackson TownshipRonald Jr. and Laiana L. Biela to Linda Barnes, Lot 9, Pennsylvania Pines, $310,000Middle Smithfield TownshipGreg [...]

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A Thirty-Day Plan for Gaining 100 Authoritative and Relevant Backlinks to Your New Website

Link building. It’s the backbone of SEO.

The way we build links has changed quite a lot over the past decade, but links themselves are no less valuable.

Like me, you may remember the early days of online marketing, when generating backlinks to a website was as simple as requesting links from link farms and other sketchy sources.

Google put a stop to that, so generating backlinks for a brand-new website is a bit trickier these days.

That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, though. The sooner your site has a decent number of backlinks from authoritative, high-quality websites, the sooner its performance on the major search engines will improve.

Although this is largely a waiting game, there are things you can do right now to generate first-rate backlinks to your new site.

Follow the advice here, and you can easily generate upwards of 100 authoritative and relevant backlinks to your new site in just 30 days. 

Forget the old way of doing things

First, don’t even think about employing black-hat techniques to generate backlinks to your site. Google’s algorithms are far too savvy to be fooled, so such efforts are bound to backfire.

As frustrating as it may be, quality trumps quantity every time when it comes to building a top-notch link profile.

Link building has long been the most volatile field in SEO. There has been much misinformation and rancor over the best way to build links, how quickly to build links, which links to build, and even whether or not to attempt link building at all.

Google’s algorithm changes are less frequent and impactful than they once were. However, we’re still discussing algorithm changes around the subject of links.

The latest of these was the September 2016 update to the Penguin algorithm:

The most substantial change of the algorithm was that “Penguin doesn’t penalize for bad links.” The conversation among the SEOs suggested as much:

What does this mean for link building?

Link building today: What matters most

First, don’t be afraid of link building. No, you shouldn’t be pulling any old-school link wheels, but neither should you be afraid of creating and unleashing a link-building strategy.

Unlike in the past, when a link was a link was a link, effective backlinks today share a few key characteristics.

First, they occur naturally. Rather than being compelled to add a link to your site for whatever reason, website owners link to yours because your content is too terrific to pass up on.

Effective backlinks come from authority sites relevant to yours. I’ll delve more deeply into what constitutes an authority site later, but suffice it to say that your links shouldn’t come from just anyone.

As for relevance, a hundred links from sites that have nothing to do with yours pale in comparison with a single link from a highly relevant site.

What constitutes an authority site?

Authority sites usually share the following traits:

• They’re credible
• They enjoy a high ranking on major search engines such as Google
• They receive huge amounts of traffic and lots of shares on social media
• They’re influential

Additionally, they lack the characteristics of a bad website, which include blatant keyword stuffing, high link-to-content ratios, excessive numbers of ads, and low-quality content and website design in general.

How to find relevant authority sites

The first step in your 30-day plan is to identify authority websites relevant to yours.

You can easily use Google for this. Use search operators to zero in on suitable sites more quickly. For example, use site:.gov, .edu, or .org to limit your search to such sites.

Search for the keyword of your choice to find sites that rank highly for it, and go from there.

Another option is to use the Moz SEO toolbar, which is offered as a free extension for Firefox and Chrome.

It displays useful metrics and information about the site you are currently visiting, including its page authority, domain authority, links, and a general analysis of the page itself.

What to offer

Okay…so far, so good.

Here’s the rub, though: You can’t approach these authority sites without offering anything in return.

Since your website is brand new, what can you possibly offer?

I hate to break it to you, but you should ideally build up a decent content library before attempting to solicit backlinks from authority sites.

Luckily, the content doesn’t have to rank well. It just has to be top-tier in terms of the quality of the information it provides.

Prior to launching your site, devote a few weeks to developing a small arsenal of content. When the time comes to work on your link-building strategy, you’ll have stuff to offer other website owners.

After all, why would they link back to you if you have nothing for them to link to in the first place?

Making contact

When it comes to approaching website owners for backlinks, you already know what to do. Navigate the site in question to track down contact information.

If you can’t snag an email address, use a contact form.

Don’t be blatantly promotional. In fact, you might even hold off broaching the subject until you’ve had a few exchanges.

Flattery will get you somewhere, so try breaking the ice by complimenting the site owner on a piece of content.

Later, show them some of your stuff, and suggest swapping links.

10 tips for getting quality authoritative backlinks to your site this month

Okay, now that you got the gist of tracking down and soliciting relevant authoritative sites for backlinks, it’s time to get down to brass tacks regarding effective link-building strategies.

I have all sorts of tricks up my sleeve, and I’m sharing the very best ones right here.

1. Blog – A LOT

According to HubSpot, companies that blog on a consistent basis have up to 97% more backlinks than those that don’t. From day one, commit yourself to posting new posts consistently.

Quality still counts, though; so, create a schedule that allows you to post regularly while offering readers real value.

2. Offer free resources

You’ve got something to offer free, right?

Like you, other website owners are always looking for useful, credible sources of information. There’s no reason why you can’t provide it.

Create a library of white papers, e-books, and other pieces of content that provide detailed, useful, and well-researched information.

Offer these resources free, but make one small request: credit in the form of a link back to your website.

Alternatively, offer the content free as long as it’s directly linked to from your site.

3. Become a PR whiz

When they’re done properly, press releases can effectively plant seeds for new backlinks to your site.

By “properly,” I mean that they provide newsworthy information and that they include a non-promotional link back to your site.

Reserve press releases for truly newsworthy events.

You should have plenty to go on with a new site since so many things are in the hopper.

4. Create and share infographics

Breaking up text with high-quality images is smart.

Not surprisingly, there’s a strong demand for top-notch images online, and infographics are especially popular. Build a library of infographics that relate to your industry or niche.

Whenever possible, create an infographic for an important trending topic that affects your industry or business. Readers love to share newsworthy graphics and use them as a form of social currency on social media.

Source: youthnoise.com

Sprinkle in a bit of SEO to ensure your infographics are easily found through the search engines.

People will want to share and use your infographics. When they do, organic, high-quality backlinks to your site will ensue.

5. Develop charts and tables

Humans are visual by nature, so charts, tables, and other visual representations of data tend to go over very well.

Load your site with tables and charts pertaining to your niche to plant the seeds for more backlinks.

You don’t have to be a data scientist to make this happen. Find reliable sources of information, and put their data into graph or table form.

Use a site such as OnlineChartTool.com to quickly and easily create eye-catching charts and graphs others will gladly link to.

6. Build an image library

Website owners are always looking for images in general—especially if they are offered free.

Make sure the images are of high quality. If you don’t possess the skills to take excellent photos yourself, you need to be willing to hire someone who does.

Post each image on its own page. Include a detailed description, and use SEO best practices to increase the odds of it ranking well in Google Image Search.

Include a form for quickly grabbing the file and link code to ensure you get your links.

7. Repurpose effective content

A quick note: never, ever copy content from the Internet.

I’m not just saying this because plagiarism is wrong; I’m saying it because Google will penalize you so hard that your site may never recover.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with identifying useful pieces of high-ranking content from other sites and repurposing them to suit your needs. But make them truly your own by optimizing them to be relevant to your website.

And don’t just repurpose text-based content as text-based content.

Take a text-based piece and turn it into an e-book, an infographic, a video, or some other form of media.

8. Fill a gap

Yes, the Internet is jam-packed with content.

Chances are, much of what needs to be said regarding your niche or industry has been said. Still, others have surely overlooked important topics. Identify those gaps, and fill them with high-quality content of your own.

Similarly, look for gaps in the types of available content. For example, perhaps there’s an overload of posts and articles about a subject but no in-depth pieces or e-books.

Be the first to provide them, and you will reap all kinds of great link karma.

9. Interview influencers

Seek out influencers within your niche, and create a roundup post.

Such a post essentially includes several links to several different influencers while covering a specific subject.

A great way to round out this type of content is by interviewing the influencers in question. After finding key influencers, follow them on social media. Interact with them to establish a relationship, and then approach them about interviewing them.

Even very busy influencers can usually take time to answer a question or two via Twitter or another social media site, so this is a worthwhile option to consider.

10. Scope out the competition

What kinds of backlinks do your competitors have?

Chances are, you could benefit from receiving links from similar sources too. Do a little sleuthing to discover who’s giving them link love.

Use a site like SEMrush.com to track down your top competitors based on relevant keywords. Next, input each competitor’s URL into a site like OpenLinkProfiler.org.

You’ll get a list of links to your competitors’ sites, and you can follow them to see where you might want to concentrate your efforts.

11. Try broken link building

This technique is especially valuable for new websites.

Put simply, you seek out broken links on relevant websites and approach site owners with replacement content they can link to instead.

Since 404 pages can negatively impact a site’s ranking, website owners usually appreciate being alerted to the issue. Use something like the iWebTool Broken Link Checker to search a specific URL for dead links.

Contact the owner, but make sure you have something for them to link to instead.

12. Make useful comments

In the old days, conventional wisdom said to post links back to your site in comments sections to boost your link profile.

These days, that comes across as spam, so you need to take a subtler approach.

You need to keep up on industry news anyway, so get into the habit of regularly reading relevant blogs and websites. When you have a useful comment to contribute, do so.

When someone comments on your site, acknowledge the comment!

Chances are, they’ll remember the gesture and reciprocate in the future. Even if they don’t, it’s good karma.

13. Write guest posts

As you already know, generating enough content for a business isn’t easy.

Site owners are often happy to be offered free content for their sites, and you can do so by offering to create guest posts and articles for them.

Get to know a website or blog before approaching the owner. Make sure your content complements theirs. Have a unique angle or insight to offer, and then make your pitch.

One more thing: reciprocate by offering to let them guest-post on your site too.

14. Solicit backlinks in person

If it’s feasible, attend trade shows and other events within your niche to meet influencers in person. Face-to-face interactions go a long way.

When interacting with an influencer in person, make sure you know who they are and why you want a link from them. If the opportunity presents itself, ask about getting a link.

At the very least, you can forge a new connection that could pay off well in the future.

15. Harness the power of social media

Your site is new, so your social media game has to be strong.

Whenever you create new content, promote it across all social media channels. Even if each post generates only a few shares, the odds of backlinks being generated increase.

Later, don’t be afraid to promote old content on social media again. You may have new followers now, so it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Conclusion

The trick to getting backlinks from the tips provided above is putting them to work right away.

Again, before doing anything else, get a decent stockpile of quality content.

If necessary, pay good money for it. It will be worth it in the long run.

Which of the suggestions above are you likely to try first?

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What Is Investing? How Do I Start?

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

At some point earlier in your life, you had no sense whatsoever about your finances. For whatever reason – maybe a life change or maybe just a growing sense of maturity – you “woke up” and began figuring thing out.

You buckled down, got smarter about your spending, and perhaps got some debt collectors off your back. You started paying off some debt, too, and it felt good. Really good.

You have some goals in life. Maybe it’s to buy a house. Maybe it’s to have children. Maybe it’s to start a business. Maybe it’s to retire early.

Speaking of retirement, even if early retirement isn’t your goal, the idea of retirement in general is out there hanging over your head.

How do people achieve these things? They “invest.” At least, that’s the word you can’t help but hear if you visit mainstream financial sites or pick up a financial magazine. You’ve got to “invest” for your future.

But what does that even mean? And does it make sense in your life?

That little story probably seems familiar in at least a few ways – and probably in a lot of ways. It’s a very common story for people who made it through school without any real grounding or education in personal finance, but then find that their real experience in adult life makes it clear that they need to be making some smarter choices, only to find that trying to figure out those smarter choices is about as clear as mud.

Trust me, I was in the same boat not all that long ago. In fact, I started this site because I was trying to figure out everything about personal finance at once and I wanted to share what I was learning as I applied it to my own life. When I started The Simple Dollar back in 2006, that story sounded almost exactly like the situation and mindset I found myself in.

I wanted to make changes in my life. I’d made a few smaller changes and I found those changes to be incredibly empowering. I had some goals in mind, but I didn’t really know how to approach them other than “investing” – but I honestly didn’t know what that word meant.

Now? I’m well along the road to retiring early and I’m able to do it with a flexible career that gives me plenty of time to spend with my children. A big part of that change came from figuring out what “investing” is and then actually doing it.

What Does “Investing” Mean?

Here’s a very simple definition of investment: putting aside or spending something so that thing – or the item you bought with it – will be more valuable in the future. When you put money into a savings account, that’s an investment – you’re putting money aside with the idea that it will increase in value over time. Buying a home is an investment – you’re using your money to buy that home wit the hopes that it will increase in value over time, too.

Quite often, when you read about “investments,” the idea is that you’re investing money. However, you can invest other things, too – your time, your energy, your skills. For example, putting aside hours to study a subject that might help you in your career path is an investment of your time and your energy in the hopes that you’ll earn more money over the long run.

However, for the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on a more specific definition. Investing means putting aside money or buying something with the purpose of selling or withdrawing it later when it has increased in value. Putting money in a savings account, even if it earns 0.1% interest, is an investment, in other words. Buying a share of stock is an investment. Buying a house is an investment. Putting money away for retirement is an investment.

Whenever you buy something with the intent of selling it later to make some money, you’re investing. Whenever you buy something with the intent of it earning money for you while you own it, you’re investing. Whenever you put aside money in an account that has the potential to earn any return, you’re investing.

Pretty simple, right?

Why Does Investing Seem Scary, Then?

There are a number of reasons.

First of all, there are many, many ways to invest. The sheer number of things you can invest in is almost limitless. You can buy shares of a company’s stock. You can buy sports memorabilia. You can put money in a savings account. You can buy a house to rent out to someone. It goes on and on and on. It’s kind of like walking through the freezer section of the grocery store and looking at the hundreds of varieties and flavors when the only thing you’re familiar with at all is vanilla ice cream. It can feel overwhelming.

Second, there’s an entire industry out there that tries to make money off of “helping” you to invest, and the only way they make money is if you’re confused and intimidated by it. Investing is actually really easy, but if everyone thinks it’s easy, no one would pay for financial services. Thus, the people in the investment world have a financial stake in making it seem complicated. They want to make it sound like you need to invest, but that investing is really confusing, so you need their help. (Frankly, it’s a load of crap. Anyone who isn’t a billionaire can easily invest for themselves.)

Third, humans are hard wired in many ways to be scared of investing. For one, people are extremely risk averse when it comes to their money. They’ll almost always take a dollar today over the promise of a couple dollars down the road. We spend a lot of our daily lives minimizing and avoiding risk, so the mere idea of putting our money at risk and not having it to spend right now seems far worse at first glance than it actually is.

All of these things combine to convince us that investing is a scary thing, something that we want to avoid until the last minute and something that we want help with when we do decide to do it.

What’s So Bad About an Investment Advisor?

There’s nothing strictly bad about most investment advisors. They’re just merely providing a service that we can provide for ourselves without having to pay their fees.

As I mentioned above, investment advisors are simply there to help people navigate a world that, for the most part, investment firms have worked to make appear as scary and confusing as possible. The truth is that, for most people, many forms of investing really are pretty simple. They’re only slightly more complicated than going to the bank and opening a savings account.

There are times where it does make sense to talk to a financial advisor – for example, when you have a large or complicated inheritance. I’d call an advisor myself in those situations. Financial advisors are good people who can be really useful in challenging situations; it’s just that your first steps into investment are not challenging.

What Do I Really Need to Know?

There are three things to think about with any investment that you make.

First, risk. Whenever you put money into an investment, there’s going to be at least a little risk that it might lose value instead of gaining value. That risk might be extremely tiny – to lose value in a savings account or a treasury note, for example, the United States government would have to collapse – but it’s always there. (It’s there even if you just hold cash in your hand, too.) Other investments have more risk – you’re risking that the company whose stocks you’re buying will continue to be a successful business, for example. You’re risking that the house you buy will continue to grow in value because it’s located in a nice neighborhood and is well cared for by the people living in it.

Second, liquidity. Whenever you want to get money out of an investment, either by withdrawing it from an account or by selling something, it’s going to take some amount of time. Some things are very liquid, like savings accounts – you can basically take out your money whenever you please. Stocks are also fairly liquid as the company through which you invest in stocks (your investment house) will help you find a buyer for those shares quite quickly. Other things, like a house, are less liquid – it will take you some time to prepare a house for sale and then sell it. Generally, lower liquidity is seen as a disadvantage if you assume that you’re going to want to sell it in the future.

Finally, return. How much money do you expect to earn on this investment each year? A savings account can be expected to return about 0.1% to 1% per year. An investment in stocks returns, on average, 7% per year – but that’s an average (remember the “risk” part – there are years when it is going to be above that and years where it’s going to be below that). An investment in a house is going to vary depending on the local real estate market – anywhere from 0-1% to 10% or more depending on what’s happening there. This is the part that usually requires some homework and a little bit of guesswork.

Most investments succeed in two out of three of these areas.

Savings accounts, for example, are great in the risk department (very low risk) and the liquidity department (very high liquidity), but aren’t good in the return department (very low return).

Stocks, for example, are great in the liquidity department (pretty high liquidity) and the return department (a very nice return on average), but are pretty bad in the risk department (you can lose money in individual years and even over multi-year stretches, while other years are really good).

Buying a house is great in the risk department (pretty low risk – they will go up in value) and the return department (usually a solid return on investment), but are pretty bad in the liquidity department (if you’re trying to get a decent return, it can take quite a while to sell a house).

So, which of the three factors should be the one you care about the least? Well… onwards to the next question!

I Understand That I Should Invest… But Why?

There are big things coming down the road for you in life. You might be saving up to buy a house. You might be planning for the college education of your kids. Retirement is always hanging out there on the horizon of life. You might simply want to be prepared for an emergency or a rainy day.

The first step of investing is figuring out your goals. A goal shouldn’t really be a pure investment goal. It should be a life goal. What do you want to do – or need to do – in your life? That’s where everything starts with investing.

Once you figure out what your goals are, unless you’re really wealthy, you probably need to focus on just one or two of them. Spreading out among a lot of goals means that you probably won’t reach any of them. You’re better off pushing hard toward one or two goals than pushing softly toward a bunch of goals.

I usually suggest that people choose to have an emergency fund as one of their goals and, unless there’s a pressing need to have something else, save for retirement as their other goal. Since saving for an emergency fund won’t take that long, you can replace it with something else not too far down the road.

What If I Am Scared of Losing Money?

The thing to remember about losing money in an investment is that unless you are taking a ton of risk, you should have many years to make up for that loss. You shouldn’t be investing in anything that has enough risk for you to lose money unless it’s a very long term investment, meaning that you’re not going to even touch that money for many more years.

What if you’re scared of losing everything? The only way to lose everything is to have all of your eggs in one basket and the bottom rips out of that basket. For example, if you put all of your money into the stock of one company and that company collapses, then you would lose everything. That’s a bad idea. You should never have all of your money in one thing. Ever. If you avoid doing that, the only way you could lose everything is if we had a global disaster of some kind, in which case you’ve got bigger problems than your long-term investments.

In general, if an investment is set up appropriately for the long term (and we’ll get to that below), you shouldn’t even need to look at it until that destination starts to get close. It might go way up one year or go down one year and it shouldn’t matter if you have plenty of years left.

What If I Am Scared of Having My Money All Tied Up?

Another worry that people have with investing is that it means yet another drain on their budget. Many Americans already live paycheck to paycheck, so what happens if another 10% of their pay (or so) is taken away? It looks painful.

First of all, the money you invest actually comes from the least important parts of your spending. If you invest 10% of your income (for example), the 10% of your purchases that are the most useless and forgettable are the ones that will disappear. Go look through your credit card statements, delete the worst 10% of those purchases, and ask yourself whether or not your life is really any worse for it.

Second, the money you invest is still accessible if you really need it (though you should avoid it if at all possible). It’s not as if the money is disappearing. You’re just passing it on to yourself down the road. You can access it if necessary.

Finally, if you automate it, you won’t even notice it. If you sign up to have money automatically transferred out of your paycheck or out of your checking account, you’ll honestly barely notice the difference. You might notice a slight financial pinch if you’re looking for it, but it won’t last very long. In fact, this is how I recommend that everyone invests – figure out your goal, set up an investment plan for it, make it automatic, and then sit back and don’t think about it.

How Do I Invest in an Emergency Fund?

The first question you should ask yourself about any investment goal is whether it is a long term goal or a short term goal. Is there a significant chance that you’ll use the money in this goal in the next ten years? If the answer is yes, think of it as a short term goal. Clearly, the answer here is yes.

The second question you should ask yourself is whether or not you will need to pull out the money quickly. If there’s an emergency, you’ll need the money quickly, so the answer here is yes.

Right away, you know that you’ll need an investment with almost zero risk and very high liquidity. The best place for that is a savings account. So, go to a bank – I encourage you to actually use a separate bank for your emergency fund so it’s not as easy to tap it on a whim – and open a savings account there. Then, set up an automatic regular transfer each week from your checking to your savings account. Just ask the bank teller if that’s possible to do before you open the account. Most banks can easily do this. Then, just set up a transfer of $10 or $20 a week from your checking into your savings.

Each week, $10 or $20 will move automatically from your checking account to your emergency fund savings account. You don’t even have to think about it. All you have to remember is that if a real emergency comes up, like a car that won’t start or an emergency plane ticket needs to be bought, you can just go to that bank and tap it for the cash you need to make it through.

How Do I Invest for Retirement?

The thing to know about retirement savings is that, even though lots of options get thrown at you, they’re actually all pretty similar. The entire point of both 401(k)s and Roth IRAs is to help you with taxes. In the case of a normal 401(k), when you put money into that account today, you take it straight out of your paycheck without having to pay income taxes on it. You’ll pay income taxes later, when you take money out of that account.

With a Roth IRA, you have to put money from your checking account into that account, but if you don’t withdraw from your Roth IRA account until retirement, you don’t have to pay any taxes at all, not even on the money earned during the years while you had that account.

That’s really all you need to know – they both just help with taxes, but to get that tax help, you have to leave the money in the account because there are penalties for taking it out before retirement. If you’re not sure which is better, honestly, don’t worry about it – they’re both beneficial and they’re both way better than having no tax benefits at all. They’re both going to help you pay less taxes – the 401(k) helps out now, while the Roth IRA helps out later on in life.

So, don’t sweat that part.

If your work offers a 401(k) plan, that’s probably your best bet. It’s the easiest route to start saving for retirement. Just go in, sign up for that plan, and when you have investment options, choose to put everything in a “target retirement fund.” That simply means that you’re choosing to have your retirement money put into something that is higher risk the further you are away from retirement, and the risk lowers as you get closer to retirement, which is exactly what you want. It’s basically a big collection of different investments in one package, so you don’t have to worry about “putting your eggs all in one basket.”

If you don’t have a plan at work, sign up for a Roth IRA on your own. There are a ton of companies that offer Roth IRAs – I personally use Vanguard because I like how they operate. The advice is the same – choose a “target retirement fund” with a year that’s close to the year when you turn 67 or so.

Contribute as much as you feel you can handle, no matter which option you choose. You can always dial it down – or dial it up – later.

How Do I Invest for Buying a House?

The logic for buying a house is much the same as for having an emergency fund.

The first question you should ask yourself about any investment goal is whether it is a long term goal or a short term goal. Is there a significant chance that you’ll use the money in this goal in the next ten years? If the answer is yes, think of it as a short term goal. Clearly, the answer here is yes.

The second question you should ask yourself is whether or not you will need to pull out the money quickly. That’s perhaps not quite as important.

So, what you want is something that doesn’t have a whole lot of risk. You won’t need to take the money out instantly. You want the best return you can get with that low risk.

In that case, your best option is still probably a savings account. CDs (certificates of deposit) are available from banks as well and they’re an option here, too. A CD is kind of like a savings account that earns more interest but you agree to not withdraw the money for a while – say, a year. The problem with CDs right now is that the rates are pretty low and don’t really beat a savings account by all that much. So, unless the rate on a CD is quite a bit higher (at least a percentage point) than the savings account, don’t bother and just use a savings account.

Again, automate it. Your bank should allow you to automatically transfer a little bit each week from your checking account to your savings account. Do it. That’s the most effective way to invest.

How Do I Invest for Sending My Kids to College?

This is the other common goal that many people have, and it actually has more in common with retirement savings. In fact, the advice here is very similar to that for retirement savings.

With saving for college, the best route is to sign up for a 529 college savings plan in your state. Most states offer them and they usually offer a small benefit for state income taxes when you contribute. If your state has income taxes and your state also offers a credit or deduction for contributions to your state’s 529 program, then that’s the way you should go. If that’s not true, then you can shop around, but many state 529 programs are pretty similar at this point.

A 529 college savings account is one that your child benefits from. You (or other interested people) put in money now, it grows until your child is ready for college, and then, if they use the money for educational purposes, they don’t have to pay any taxes on it, not even on the money that was earned while it sat there in the account. Sweet!

You can sign up for a 529 account online – it’s quite easy – and then you’ll have investment options, just like with your retirement plan. Make sure you set up an automatic contribution of some kind. Then, among the investment options, just choose the one that targets the year you expect your child to go to college (almost every plan has a “target” fund for college that sets them up perfectly for that year). That’s all you have to do.

Final Thoughts

For most people, that’s all you really need to know about investing. There are already tools in place for you that are easy to use and help you out with whatever your goal might be, and it’s all simple enough that you can do it yourself.

The key thing to remember is this: the big risk with investing is putting all your eggs in one basket (if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing). The options above all avoid that mistake entirely, and they’re simple to boot.

If you’re in doubt about anything, educate yourself. Read as much as you can on the topic. Just remember that financial advisors often make money by making something simple into something confusing. Even if the terms seem complicated, none of it actually is complicated unless you’re a multi-millionaire. Just keep it extremely simple and you’ll do fine.

Good luck!

The post What Is Investing? How Do I Start? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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10 of the Most Ridiculous Resume Mistakes Hiring Managers Have Ever Seen

Have you ever straight-up lied on your resume?

Well, you’re not alone, at least according to a recent CareerBuilder survey of 2,153 hiring and human resource managers.

The poll found 77% of respondents have caught a lie on a resume. But how many lies went unnoticed?

Your need to catch a potential employer’s eye to get a job is understandable. More than 2 in 5 of those surveyed said they spend less than a minute looking at a resume. And nearly 1 in 4 spend less than 30 seconds!

They sure make their minds up quickly.

Regardless of your credentials, a notable gaffe can be enough to get your resume tossed aside. And you might not ever know why.

10 Ridiculous Things People Have Put on Resumes to Get a Job

You might not think people could mess up this royally, but the report highlighted 10 absurd things HR and hiring managers said actual applicants have included on real resumes.

According to the survey, managers report applicants have:

1. Auto-corrected their surname from “Flin” to “Flintstone.”

True story: His name was Freddie.

2. Stated they had great attention to detail…

… but “attention” was misspelled.

3. Claimed they worked at a federal prison, but…

A background check determined the applicant was actually incarcerated at the prison during that time.

4. Stated they had been a prince in another life.

Can we call your references?

5. Listed “taking long walks” as a skill

Is that a measure of endurance, or…? Sounds more like something that should go in your dating profile.

6. Used direct quotes from “Star Wars” in their resume.

Not sure why anyone’s complaining about this one…

7. Claimed he would work harder if paid more.

Listen, we’re all thinking it, but maybe you shouldn’t spend precious resume space on it.

8. Wrote this at the end of their resume:

“I didn’t really fill this out, someone did it for me.”

9. Used a resume template with cats in the corners.

That’s probably only effective if you’re applying to these cat cafe jobs.

10. Listed “smoking” under hobbies.

Unless it’s because your sales numbers are on fire, you can probably leave this one off the list.

What Employers Want

If you’re going to leave off superfluous hobbies and the obvious fudging of your work history, what should you include on your resume?

Here are five things HR managers say will catch their attention — in a good way:

• Customize your resume to their open position (63%)

• List your skills first (41%)

• Include a cover letter (40%)

• Address your application specifically to the hiring manager (22%)

• Include a link to your blog, portfolio or website on the resume (16%)

And if that polished resume gets you called in for an interview, use this checklist to prepare for the 20 most common job interview questions.

Your Turn: Have you ever made a ridiculous blunder on a resume while trying to get a job?

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).

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94-year-old Cubs fan suited for championship

Eino (A-know) Anttila lived through the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and the '60s. He’s seen a lot in his 94-year lifetime.But he’s never seen his beloved Chicago Cubs win the World Series. Now, after almost a century, he might be getting close.The Cubs, who play baseball, are a step away from competing in the Series. If the team beats the Dodgers, Chicago will advance to the World Series against the Cleveland Indians. The Cubs lead [...]

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4 Little-Known Mistakes You’re Probably Making on Your Cover Letters

Cover letters are the bane of any job seeker’s existence.

For them to be good — good enough to maybe hopefully land you an interview — they need to be really good. And customized. (Groan.)

You probably already knew that, but you might not know what sets excellent cover letters apart from the rest. But Sara McCord does.

During her career, she’s read hundreds of cover letters — and says she can determine if one is good or bad in a mere three minutes.

Based on her advice in The Muse, here are four fatal cover letter flaws:

1. Using a Totally Lame Greeting

Truth time: Have you ever started a cover letter with “Dear Sir or Madam” or “To Whom It May Concern”?

“When a hiring manager sees any one of these things,” McCord writes, “she reads it as, ‘I didn’t take my time with this, and I don’t really care about working here.’”

And it probably gets your application tossed in the recycling bin.

No word on whether, “Dear hiring manager” is also a no-go (which I’ve definitely used before), but it seems like looking up the hiring manager’s name is the best bet.

2. Reeking of Desperation

Who knew? Just like with dating, sounding too desperate can turn hiring managers off.

“You don’t need to thank the hiring manager so incredibly much for reading your application — that’s his job,” McCord writes.

“If you align considering your application with the biggest favor ever, you’ll make the other person think it’s because you’re desperate.”

Note to self: Don’t gush.  

3. Opening With a Sucky/Boring Sentence

I don’t know why I’ve never thought of this before, but the first line of your cover letter is like the lede of a story; you want to draw your reader in.

And saying “I’m writing to apply for XYZ job” just ain’t gonna do the trick.

“When a hiring manager sees that, she won’t think, ‘How thoughtful of the applicant to remind me what I’m reading!’” McCord quips. “Her reaction will be much closer to, ‘boring,’ ‘meh,’ or even ‘next!’”

Here are some examples of opening lines that will definitely grab their attention.

4. Airing Your Laundry — Even if It’s Clean

Your cover letter isn’t a place to simply list your skills and experience (that’s what your resume’s for).

A cover letter should highlight your personality, as well as how your background jives with the job.

“If you write a laundry list, it’ll blend into every other submission formatted the same way,” McCord explains. “Sure, you might still include lists of skills, but break those up with anecdotes or splashes of personality.”

Check out her full post for some great examples.

Your Turn: Did any of these cover letter mistakes surprise you?

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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If Someone Steals a Base During the World Series, We All Get Free Tacos

So your favorite baseball team didn’t make it to the postseason? It’s OK — neither did mine.

But even if you’re not invested in this year’s World Series matchup, there’s a good reason to pay attention: potential free food.

When someone steals a base during the World Series, Taco Bell will reward fans with a free Doritos Locos Taco.

How to Get Free Taco Bell, Courtesy of the MLB

If a player steals a base in the first two games of the World Series, which starts on Tuesday, Oct. 25, head to Taco Bell on Wednesday, Nov. 2 for your reward.

If a stolen base happens in game three through seven, you can pick up your free taco on Thursday, Nov. 10. The tricky part: You need to visit your local Taco Bell between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Don’t want to stay up late watching baseball? You can always check Taco Bell’s Steal a Base, Steal a Taco website for confirmation of your free taco payday.

The Doritos Locos Taco usually costs $1.49. One taco per fan, regardless of how many bases get stolen.

There’s no guarantee you’ll get to redeem this crunchy reward. Last year, Kansas City Royals player Lorenzo Cain stole a base and earned the gratitude of millions of Penny Hoarders. But prior to that, the last “taco hero” was the San Francisco Giants’ Angel Pagan in the 2012 World Series. 

What are your odds for this World Series? I’m not a betting woman, but here are some stats. The American League contender, the Cleveland Indians, have stolen a collective three bases in the postseason alone.

While the National League Championship Series is still playing out, both teams look like solid options. 

The Chicago Cubs have stolen three bases in postseason play, with two from powerhouse third-baseman Javier Baez. The Los Angeles Dodgers have stolen a whopping nine bases in the postseason alone, with three from right-fielder Joshua Reddick.

Tensions can run high during World Series play, but one thing’s for sure: These teams will do anything for the title. I’d expect at least a few stolen base attempts.

So it might be worth keeping your eye on this World Series, if for nothing else but the taco potential.
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder. She is actually sort of a betting woman. 

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Find a Penny, Pick It Up… and Win $1,000

7 Cheap and (Mostly) Easy DIY Halloween Costumes You’ll Actually Wear Again

First 50 Funds update: M&G Property fund re-opens for business

Rachel Lacey

looking-out-of-commercial-property.jpg

The M&G Property Portfolio, which is one of Moneywise’s {First 50 Funds for beginners} has become the latest commercial property fund to reopen its doors. Trading will resume at noon on Friday 4 November.

The M&G Property Portfolio, which is one of Moneywise’s First 50 Funds for beginners has become the latest commercial property fund to reopen its doors. Trading will resume at noon on Friday 4 November.

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Making Today a Part of Your Meaningful Life

“Modern man is conditioned to expect instant gratification, but any success or triumph realized quickly, with only marginal effort, is necessarily shallow. Meaningful achievement takes time, hard work, persistence, patience, proper intent and self-awareness. The path to success is punctuated by failure, consolidation, and renewed effort.” – Mark Twight

As my children grow older, I’ve been having more and more conversations with them about life. What does it mean to be an adult? What does it mean to be a good person? What kind of life do you want to have?

Often, those conversations end up running around in my head for days and weeks afterward. Sometimes, they end up forming articles for The Simple Dollar, because they end up making me think about my own personal choices about how I spend my money and my time.

About a week ago, I told my children that the best life you can live is one where you work hard to achieve something or make real progress on something that’s important to you and to the world and, along the way, do some things that are truly meaningful to you personally. Naturally, my oldest wanted to know my own answer to that question. What do I work on that helps me make progress or achieve something that’s important to me?

I actually had an answer to that. For me, the thing I’ve achieved is putting out a ton of useful advice written in an earnest and friendly way for people struggling with different phases of their financial life, from people struggling even to get food on the table, from people trying to figure out their debts to people unhappy with their careers to people wanting to retire early. That’s something that’s meaningful to me in a very deep way. The messages I’ve received from readers over the years have made my work feel truly meaningful.

What else in my life is truly meaningful? My family. I chose my career path so that I could spend more time with my children as they grew up. My community. I also have a ton of internal things that bring meaning into my life – learning new things, understanding the world better, and exploring the world (particularly nature) are all deeply meaningful to me.

So I talked to them about those things. Helping people make their lives better through their own actions is incredibly meaningful and also beneficial to the world. Spending time with my family and community is incredibly meaningful to me personally. I get a ton of personal value out of learning new things, out of exploring the world around me, and out of intellectual challenges.

At the end of my life, if I can look back on it and say that I did my best to help other people with my words, that I did my best to be a good father and husband, that I did my best to raise the quality of my community, that I did my best to explore and understand the world and to share the fruits of that exploration, and that I spent my extra time on intellectually challenging and meaningful things, I’ll be happy with my life.

The things I spend my money or time on that fall in line with those goals are things that I won’t regret. The things I spend my time or money on that don’t fall in line with those goals? I’m going to regret them.

In an effort to try to relate all of this to my children, I talked about my day a little bit. I told them of the things I did that day that were in alignment with those things. I wrote a really good article. I exchanged some Facebook messages with readers who were struggling with their financial life. I spent a few hours at the park with my children, getting some exercise and exploring a little bit. I read a couple chapters of a really challenging book that forced me to think about the world. Those were all right in alignment with my goals.

But what wasn’t in line with those goals? I played some mindless computer games that were what I call “empty fun” – enjoyable in the moment but forgotten shortly thereafter. I spent more money on food than was necessary. I spent some time reading a bunch of websites that were, in the end, forgettable and pointless as well. None of that helps me with anything that actually matters to me in my life.

Since then, I’ve asked my children these four questions each night before bed – and I’ve challenged myself to answer the same things.

What do you want to do or achieve in your lifetime? Yes, this question gets repetitive, and it’s easy to settle into a repeated answer given without thought. The purpose isn’t the answer, though. The purpose is to think about it every single day so that you can sometimes have deeper insights and so you’re aware of your own changing values.

My children give interesting answers here. At first, they didn’t really know what to say and their thoughts were all over the place, but I’m finding that by asking this over and over again, they’re beginning to chip out some real truths about what they value. I see the same thing in me, though to a lesser extent because I’ve thought about these issues.

What have you done today toward those things? Actions. Today. Those are the key elements here. It’s not things you thought about doing. It’s not things you might do tomorrow. It’s today. What did you do today toward making your life achievements happen?

For me, some things are routine. Writing is part of my daily routine, for example. Where I’m challenged is both in making sure I’m moving forward in other areas and also in areas that provide a foundation for all of that stuff, like personal health and personal finance.

What did you do today that didn’t guide you toward those things? This question makes me face my spending mistakes and my time use mistakes. I usually know what they are, and reflecting on them again outside of the moment helps me weed them out. My goal is to minimize the stuff in life that doesn’t add up to anything meaningful and the best way to do that is reflect on it daily.

What can you do going forward to maximize the valuable things and minimize the useless things? In other words, what needs to be done tomorrow to make it more successful than today in terms of those lifelong things?

These four questions have provided the foundation of almost-daily family conversations ever since. While I don’t typically talk about every cent that Sarah and I spend, I do reflect on them, and I’m extremely open about my time use.

If I can’t look at myself honestly, who can? Who will? The truth is that no one will. Although these conversations are useful, it’s my careful consideration of my own life that will make my life better.

I want to teach my children to be able to look at themselves and their choices honestly, too. It’s something that’s useful for any person to have in their life, as it helps you to shape a life that’s meaningful and rich rather than an empty treadmill.

What if those steps toward the things that have meaning seem dull and unenjoyable? Anything worth achieving in life isn’t easy, and often those individual steps are hard. They don’t provide easy pleasure, but what they do provide is meaningful pleasure. Exercising until you’re completely worn out might not feel fun, but there’s going to be this deeper sense there that you’ve actually done something real, and then that hard work pays off the next time you do something that requires physical exertion (like playing soccer with your kids or simply taking on the tasks of everyday life).

If you can’t find that deeper meaning in the challenging steps in life, perhaps you haven’t yet figured out what it is that you want to achieve in life. Without that central guiding sense of where you want to go, it can become even harder to really challenge yourself, because it’s from that central sense of where you want to go that the deep feeling of joy in doing something challenging today comes from.

Every time you spend an hour or you spend a dollar, you have an abundance of choices. Will you spend it on something that’s transient – something that’s perhaps immediately fun but is forgotten in the next hour? Or will you use it on something that’s meaningful, something that lasts? We’re faced with that choice again and again. I’ve found that spending it on something meaningful is virtually always the right choice, because it lifts up everything else in life. It guides my money use, my time use, and my energy use. I’m far from perfect at it, but the better I do, the better life seems.

If you’re finding this to be a challenge in your own life, ask yourself those four bolded questions from above.

What do you want to do or achieve in your lifetime?
What have you done today toward those things?
What did you do today that didn’t guide you toward those things?
What can you do going forward to maximize the valuable things and minimize the useless things?

Ask yourself those things again and again, about every dollar you spend, about every hour you spend, about every ounce of energy you spend. Use those questions as motivation to get up and do something meaningful.

You will never, ever, ever regret it.

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