Need Money Now? 24 Ways to Make Cash Right Now

If you find yourself saying, “I need money NOW!”, trust me. You're not alone.

Nearly everyone has faced a situation where they needed cash for an emergency, and there are times when budgets run tight.

If your bank account is empty and your credit cards are maxed out, what are you to do?

The good news is, there are plenty of ways to get cash in your pocket in the next 24 hours. They may not all be glamorous, but you could rely on these methods in a pinch.

24 Ways to Make Money Right Now

Need cash now? Work your way through this list to find a few ways to put money in your pocket in just a few hours.

#1: Give plasma.

Donating plasma requires a strong tolerance for displeasure. Not only do you need to fill out annoying forms and stand in long lines, but you have to let someone draw your blood, too!

But if you’re up for it – and your local plasma center is open – you can usually score at least $40 for your first donation, and maybe more.

That’s not a lot of cash, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers!

When I was in college, I found myself in this exact situation. Needing money now I headed to the local plasma center and plopped myself on the donating table. One word of caution: be sure to drink plenty of fluids!

It was in the middle of the summer and apparently I was a bit dehydrated so I was there much longer than expected.

Either way, I may some quick cash and got some free apple juice in the process.

#2: Use TaskRabbit.

The wonders of the internet have led to a number of ways people can make money quickly. One website that helps in this respect is TaskRabbit. By signing up, you can run errands for people and earn cash in return.

Jobs can vary greatly, but common tasks include picking up laundry from the cleaners, making a grocery run, picking up prescriptions, and walking dogs. If you don’t mind doing random stuff in exchange for fast cash, this is an option you should definitely consider.

#3: Watch dogs with Rover.com.

Do you love dogs? If you do, you can make some easy money for doing something that comes naturally.

With a service like Rover.com, you can connect with dog owners who need someone to watch their pets overnight. Best of all, you can easily earn up to $49 per night per pet depending on your location and the rates people charge nearby.

#4: Tear your house and car apart to find money.

Most of us have money stashed all over the place. We might have a dollar stuck in the back of our wallet, a $20 bill in an old jacket, and an ashtray in our car stuffed to the brim with quarters and dimes.

If you really need money fast, you should get to work tearing your place apart. Make sure to check in all the places you keep money often, or may have kept money in the past.

You may not get a lot of cash with this method, but anything you find will help!

#5: Return stuff you don’t want…and get cash!

We all make purchases that don’t work out the way we want. Sometimes, we might even stuff that purchase in a closet with the tags still attached.

If you have stuff you can return, you should definitely try. With or without a receipt, some retailers will give you cash back for your purchase or, at the very least, store credit.

This is more of a refund on your own money, but hey, it works!

Before you look for more ways to earn money fast, check around your house for stuff you bought, never used, and could potentially return.

#6: Pawn something you really don’t want.

Pawn shops offer quick cash for items you don’t want, yet offer just a fraction of the actual value of your item. That’s why I only suggest this strategy if you have stuff you do not want and have no intention to keep.

Items that can help you score big at a pawn shop include things like guns, jewelry, and electronics, although other items might work well, too.

I once had dreams of being the next Led Zeppelin and saved to buy a Fender guitar. You know how many times I played it? Maybe two. So much for my dream of becoming a rock star!

Recognizing I wouldn't be taking the main stage anytime soon, I was able to get some of my money back at a local pawn shop.

Like I said though, you should only pawn stuff you will never miss!

#7: Borrow from friends or family.

Need money quickly? It may pay to turn to family and friends for a temporary loan. While this situation may be uncomfortable, it can work in a pinch. Just make sure you get the loan terms in writing to avoid hurt feelings and get everyone on the same page.

If you want more reinforcement, you can facilitate a loan from family or friends through an app like Ledge or Venmo. By using one of these services, you can create a digital history of your loan, plus set up a repayment plan that makes sense.

#8: Consider a personal loan.

If you have a credit card already, you can normally take out cash with an ATM or one of those cash advance checks they send in the mail. While this option can work, expect to pay a cash advance fee plus credit card interest if you don’t pay the loan off right away.

That's why personal loans can be the much better option. Getting approved for a personal loan used to be a hassle, but with the evolution of technology, it's much simpler. Online lenders, like Discover Personal Loans, for example, have removed much of the headaches and hassles of getting approved.

#9: Sell stuff on craigslist.

We all have used stuff we don’t want anymore. Why not sell it? By setting up a few simple (and free) ads on craiglist, you can offload things like furniture, CDs, electronics, and even clothing.

If you belong to any Facebook resale groups, you can also post your items for sale there. Just make sure to price your items so they will sell quickly. With the right item, the right price, and a little bit of luck, you could have cash in your hands (and less stuff to worry about) in no time.

#10: Turn on your Uber app.

This strategy will only work if drive for Uber already. Still, it might be worth signing up now if you know you'll need money in the future.

Uber is a ride sharing app that lets regular people earn money for driving people around. You do have to get your vehicle approved and meet special standards ahead of time, but it’s a quick and painless way to earn money once you’re all set up!

The best part about Uber is that you don’t have to commit to working certain hours. If you want to earn cash, you can turn your Uber app on. If you aren’t ready to work, leave your app turned off. It really is as simple as that.

#11: Complete a task through Fiverr.

If you have technical or design skills, advertising your services on a website like Fiverr is a smart move. Not only can you score ongoing work, but you can pick up one-off jobs that lead to cash fairly quickly.

One day, you might get asked to design someone’s logo. On another, you might be asked to create a PDF. The jobs you’ll get hired for really depend on your current skillset and list of abilities.

Either way, setting up a profile on Fiverr is a smart way to earn cash fast if you know what you’re doing online.

#12: Scan receipts into ReceiptHog.

This probably sounds crazy, but at least one website will pay you for scanning in receipts. ReceiptHog is an app that lets you earn cash back just for scanning in receipts for stuff you already bought.

They don’t even have to be your receipts, really. I mean, ReceiptHog won’t know if you scan your mom’s grocery receipt and claim it as your own!

If you want quick money, you better start scanning!

#13: Babysit some kids.

Do you know anyone with kids? A few people? Chances are, someone you know needs some child care within the next few days. By placing an ad on Facebook or messaging some friends, you may be able to score a fairly quick babysitting gig. And who knows? It could even lead to ongoing work.

Babysitters charge different rates, but you should be able to earn at least $7 or $8 per hour. Even if you only babysit three hours, that’s at least $21 in your pocket in the next few days. Boom!

#14: Have a garage sale…..now.

If you live in a neighborhood with any type of foot or car traffic, there’s no reason you can’t have a garage sale today.

All you have to do to get started is find some household stuff you don’t want, set it out on some tables, and put up a few signs. And thanks to the internet, you can advertise your sale on Facebook and sites like craigslist.org for free.

If you have clothes and electronics to add to your sale, that’s even better! The more stuff you can sell, the better off you'll be!

#15: Become a street performer.

Can you sing, or at least try? How about blow fire?

Hey, we’re not judging your ability here; we’re just suggesting a fun way to earn quick cash.

If you can sing, perform physical stunts, play the guitar or a piano, or do standup comedy, you could feasibly do it by the side of the road for cash, right? At the very least, you could give it a whirl!

No matter what your “skill” is, you could probably earn at least some money for performing in an area with lots of street traffic. Make sure to sit out a bucket or hat to let people know you’re taking donations, and let the good times roll.

#16: Figure out who owes you money.

Chances are good you have loaned people money in the past, but did they ever pay you back?

If not, you might want to look them up and pay them a visit. If someone owes you $20, $50, or $100 and you can feasibly collect, this is a great way to get money quickly.

Before you go door-to-door, think of people and situations where you may have loaned out money in the past. Perhaps you paid for someone’s dinner when your waitress wouldn’t split the check. Or maybe you loaned someone a $50 bill when they were down on their luck.

Whatever the reason, ask that person (politely) for your money back and you might be surprised how quickly they pay up.

#17: Negotiate a bill.

You never know when you can save money (and put money in your pocket) just by asking. But if you have a phone bill, a cable bill, or any other service bill, negotiating might be worth it.

Before your bills are due, call up a few of your service providers to see if you can negotiate a better deal. If you were able to bring your cable bill from $110 down to $70, for example, you would save $40 and pocket that money each month instead.

We were able to save almost $70 from our satellite bill by doing this. All we had to do was call and casually mention we were switching to one of their competitors and by the time the call ended we netted a huge savings and got all of our hardware upgraded.

Score!

If you’re unsure of this method, it’s always worth asking. All they can say is “no,” right?

#18: Ask your boss for an advance on your check.

I would never, ever suggest someone get a payday loan. However, it can’t hurt to ask your boss for an advance on your paycheck.

If you really, seriously need the money, explain the situation to your boss to see if they want to help. At worst, they will say no and send you on your way. At best, they will agree to give you a few hundred bucks from next week’s paycheck.

The key here is, you’ll never know unless you ask.

#19: Pick up a serving job.

This one might take you up to a week, but it can put cash in your pocket fairly fast. If you need real cash and can’t wait too long, a part-time job as a server or bartender could fit the bill.

Once you are training, you should start earning tips right away. This may not be the best way to earn cash fast, but it could pay the bills. Plus, you don’t have to work there forever, right?

#20: Turn in your gift cards for cash.

Did you know that some Coinstar machines let you turn in new or used gift cards for cash? The good news is, you’ll get cash instantly and on-the-spot. The bad news is, you’ll forfeit up to 20 percent of your gift card’s value in the process.

If you have unused gift cards you won’t use, however, this is a smart way to turn them into dollars.

#21: Sell nice clothes for cash.

Certain stores geared at both adults and teens (but mostly women) will give you cold, hard cash in exchange for your brand name used clothing. Plato’s Closet or Buffalo Exchange are two such options, with each offering you money in exchange for your nicest stuff.

You’ll generally need to keep your clothing in excellent shape to get actual money back, but this strategy works well if you have a lot of nice clothes.

#22: Clean houses.

Do you know someone whose house is unkempt? Offer to clean it for them in exchange for a fee, and see what they say.

Lots of people don’t have the desire or time to clean their own homes, and some of them are perfectly willing to pay for the service.

If you don’t know anyone personally you can ask, you can always place a free ad on craigslist.org or Facebook. Chances are, you’ll reach someone who could benefit from your cleaning skills and a few hours of your time.

#23: Become a handyman…right now.

Believe it or not, many people earn a living performing odd jobs. If you know a lot about construction and are able to fix most household issues, you may be able to earn cash with your own handyman business.

After placing an ad online, you could easily connect with people who might pay you to clean out their dryer vent, replace interior lighting, or do basic maintenance work. Most of the time, you can get paid in cash and earn up to $40 an hour!

#24: Cash in all of your credit card points.

If you have a rewards credit card or two, chances are good you’ve got some rogue points hanging around. They might not seem like a lot, but they can add up fast!

Turn in your points for a statement credit if you can, then use your credit card for any immediate purchases you need to make. If you can wait a few days or up to a week, certain rewards credit cards will also let you redeem points for a check in the mail.

Score!

Final Thoughts

If you need money now, chances are good one of these suggestions will provide the immediate influx of cash you need. If not, I challenge you to come up with other creative ways to earn money fast. When it comes to earning money, some skill and a little creative thinking can go a long way.

What would you add to this list? What is your favorite way to get cash quickly when you need money now?

The post Need Money Now? 24 Ways to Make Cash Right Now appeared first on Good Financial Cents.

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Personal Capital Review – Managing All Your Investments in One Place

Mystery Shopper Beware: Here’s How to Avoid Falling for a Scam

Whether you’re a college student, stay-at-home parent or retiree, mystery shopping is a fun and legitimate way to make some extra cash — sometimes a lot of extra cash.

I’ve mystery shopped a lot over the last few years (though nowhere near 5,000 times!) and really enjoyed myself.

The one thing I haven’t liked, though, is stumbling across mystery shopper scams. Luckily, it hasn’t happened often but I still need to stay alert for shady shopping jobs — and so should you.

Mystery shopper con artists will always lurk around the internet so it’s important to know how they operate.

The Most Common Mystery Shopper Scams

Like most cons, mystery shopper scams come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Here are some of the most common ones you might encounter.

The “Oops We Overpaid You” Scam

One of the most common mystery shopping scams involves getting a victim to give up their name and mailing address, ostensibly so the fake company can advance the shopper some money for a gig.

When the victim receives a check in an amount larger than they were expecting, Fake Company tells them to deposit it in their personal bank account and wire back the overage amount.

You guessed it. The check bounces and the victim is out whatever money they wired to Fake Company, never to be seen again.  

The U.S. Postal Service warns against a similar scam involving unsolicited mailings from scammers inviting you to become a mystery shopper.

Be sure to check out the copy of an actual fake check and letter to see how convincing these con artists can be.

The “Pay Us to Find You the Best Shops” Scam

This con plays upon our natural desire to want guidance navigating through the hundreds, if not thousands, of mystery shopping jobs available across the internet.

These fake companies promise to find you best, highest-paying, most fun jobs in your area — for a fee.

They may claim to have special search capabilities, access to mystery shops that aren’t advertised online or recruit for well-known mystery shopping companies.

Don’t you believe it.

Reputable mystery shopping companies don’t use recruiters, hide their jobs from applicants or require special search tools to find.

Drop these fraudsters like radioactive waste.

The “Oddly Specific Invitation” Scam

The AARP, which tracks all kinds of scammers through the its Fraud Watch Network, says fake mystery shopping gigs have been around for a while.

“One way the scammers found many of their victims during the recession was through job boards where people could post their resumes,” says Amy Nofziger, regional director for the AARP Foundation.

“Scammers would use these to personalize their pitch to specific job seekers, homing in on the job seeker’s previous experience,” she says.

“They still use these methods today.”

The “Make $9,000 a Month!” Scam

You know we love mystery shopping here at The Penny Hoarder HQ, even when we kind of accidentally fail at it.

Several of us do it as a side hustle, but we know we’re not going to get rich doing it.

True, some shops can net you anywhere from $45 to check out a church up to as much as $100 to shop for a trench coat.

But those opportunities are rare.

Most mystery shopping jobs net you more like $10 – $20 per gig, or just some free booze (hey, that’s good enough for me).

Armed with that knowledge, be highly skeptical of any company that promises you’ll make enough money to drive around in a Lexus while nibbling caviar at stoplights just by shopping undercover.

Protecting Yourself from Mystery Shopping Scams

New mystery shopping scams pop up all the time, so your best defense is a good offense.

When deciding whether to apply for mystery shopper job or run away like your hair’s on fire, keep these tips in mind.

1. Research. Then Research Some More

You probably already knew I was going to tell you to do your homework, but it really is the number one way to protect yourself from scams.

Don’t be afraid to go all Sherlock on the company you’re thinking of signing up for.

Check out them out with Better Business Bureau, run them through the BBB Scam Tracker, and type their name in your browser’s search tool to see what pops up. (“[Company Name] scam” is a particularly useful search string.)

Our Facebook community page is also a great place to talk with other home-based workers about their mystery shopping experiences.

2. Don’t Respond to Mystery Shopping Companies That Find You

Don’t answer unsolicited emails about mystery shopping gigs, no matter how enticing they seem. Toss mystery shopper snail mail you didn’t send for and hang up on companies that call you out of the blue.

Reputable mystery shopping companies don’t spend money and time recruiting shoppers through cold calls and emails to random people around the country.

3. Keep Your Hard-Earned Cash

You want to make money as a mystery shopper, not spend it.

Any mystery shopping company that asks you for money in exchange for plum assignments, application fees, or background checks does not have your best interests at heart.

The Federal Trade Commission says it best: “Remember that legitimate companies don’t charge people to work for them – they pay people to work for them.”

What to Do If You Spot a Mystery Shopping Scam

If you spot what you think is a fake mystery shopping company during your job search, don’t bother trying to call them out.

Instead, report ‘em!

• Use the BBB Scam Tracker reporting tool

• Tell your state Attorney General

• Alert the Federal Trade Commission

• Call the AARP Fraud Watch Helpline

They’re the experts in handling this kind of thing so file a quick complaint and get back to the business of finding a legitimate mystery shopper job.

Nofziger notes mystery shopper scams can happen any time but occur more frequently during economic downturns and at certain times of the year.

“We often see an uptick during the holidays, when people are looking to make some extra income for the holiday shopping,” she says. “The scammers will often use this same season as a way to sound more legitimate by touting ‘the extra people needed for these secret shopper positions during the holiday shopping season, as companies want to ensure good customer service.’”

Nofziger says vigilance and consumer education are the best weapons against falling for fake mystery shopper gigs.

“These scammers are very clever at what they do and in the ways that they trick people.”

Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. The best mystery shopper gig she ever landed was a full makeover at a fancy department store. She got to keep the lipstick.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, one of the largest personal finance websites. We help millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. In 2016, Inc. 500 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the No. 1 fastest-growing private media company in the U.S.

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This Woman Hasn’t Used Money in 17 Years. Here’s How She Lives

Penny Hoarders know the importance of saving money and living frugally.

But have you ever imagined what your life would be like if you gave up money entirely?

It might sound completely impossible, but German psychotherapist Heidemarie Schwermer proves it’s not.

She’s lived without using even a cent… for 17 years.

How to Live Without Money

When she was 53, Schwermer decided to forego money and material possessions for a full year.

After setting aside 200 euros (about $226) as an emergency fund, she canceled her lease and gave away everything she had, except for a few daily necessities and a change of clothes.

“After my apartment was emptied, I jumped around for joy,” Schwermer says.

She then began a bartering lifestyle, exchanging psychotherapy sessions, window-washing services and other household help for room and board in a number of private homes.

Once the year was up, Schwermer’s experiment was still going strong — and she was happy with the freedom her new lifestyle afforded her.

So she kept it up.

Now, she’s 70 years old… and still hasn’t touched her 200-euro emergency fund.

Can Money Buy Happiness?

Today, Schwerner stays busy giving lectures and consultations to those curious about how to live without money.

In exchange for her wisdom, she’s been offered lodging, food and often, free travel.

She’s also the subject of the 2010 documentary “Living Without Money,” which has been screened more than 300 times in 30 countries.

Schwermer’s story is a fantastic reminder that in the end, money is just a utility — a key that unlocks your freedom to travel, move to a different city… or, yes, make a purchase.

But if you take the time to figure out what you value and what makes you authentically happy, you may discover you don’t need money to get what you really want out of life.

Jamie Cattanach (@jamiecattanach) is a freelance writer whose work has been featured at Ms. Magazine, BUST, Roads & Kingdoms, The Write Life, Nashville Review, Word Riot and elsewhere. Her writing focuses on food, wine, travel and frugality.

 

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, one of the largest personal finance websites. We help millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. In 2016, Inc. 500 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the No. 1 fastest-growing private media company in the U.S.

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Questions About Parents, Siding, Online Banking, VHS Tapes, 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. Parents in difficult financial shape
2. Vanguard Personal Advisor Services thoughts
3. A major decision on siding
4. Looking for health insurance
5. Canceling a credit card unexpectedly
6. Safety of online banks
7. Roth IRA or 457?
8. Old VHS “home movies”
9. Pay down mortgage before retirement?
10. Dental expenses
11. Cashing out life insurance
12. Thoughtful reading during recovery

I have been writing posts for The Simple Dollar almost every single day for more than a decade now. It’s been a chronicle of what I’ve learned about successful financial living in the modern world, but those lessons often stretch out into other aspects of life as well.

The truth is that there are a lot of days when the words simply don’t come out, no matter how hard I try. I sit down… and I simply can’t write anything that anyone would want to read.

The trick to all of this is actually pretty simple. On days when I’m writing well, I write a lot. I write as much as I can possibly get away with. Often, on a good writing day, I’ll write ten thousand words or more. To put that in perspective, if I did that every day, I would write a book in less than a week.

On days when I’m not writing well, I edit. I brainstorm. I read books and articles. I read and answer emails and messages. Sometimes, I just go do something else entirely, something that might help me write a post.

Most of the time, I strive to have at least ten posts completed and “in the bank” just in case I cannot write well on a particular day. That way, I can pull up something that’s fairly timeless that I have saved for later use and simply post that instead. (That’s also how I handle vacations.)

It took a long time to find a good path through these things. Once upon a time, days where I couldn’t write triggered panic time and also triggered some intense effort to force out a short, mediocre article. These days, I’ve figured out better ways to do things.

On with the questions.

Q1: Parents in difficult financial shape

My siblings and I all learned how to live frugal lives and how to be savers without the help of my very spendy parents. Actually, I suppose it was watching them make tons of financial mistakes that made us 3 very responsible with money. We are all on track to retire early.

Now, my parents are [in their sixties]. They own 2 homes, (10 hours driving distance between them) with 100k+ mortgages on both of them. They own 2 new cars and 1 is not paid off. They have ~80k in retirement savings. They spend lots of money on wine and my father has smoked for 50+ years. Their favorite activities are shopping and watching tv.

My dad runs his company alone now and is part-time retired. My mom [works full time] and she is desperate to retire. She absolutely hates her job and complains constantly about money and being able to retire. She gets health insurance for them both through work.

Yes, they have had some financial setbacks like losing a company in the housing crisis and a couple of really ridiculous lawsuits that cost them loads of dough in lawyer fees. They partially paid for my sister and my own college educations which we realize now was very generous.

However, they sit at home watching tv and do nothing to ameliorate their situation. They complain about being tired.

We the siblings don’t know what to do. We have tried to talk to them about money. We have given them financial books and suggested that they read them. I wrote them out a financial plan suggesting that they sell both houses and a car and buy a little place in a walk-able community with cash.

We have also asked them to exercise so that they will lead healthier lives. They have their health now but how long can that last with a life like theirs?

Now we don’t know what to do. We assume that they will end up living in one of our basements in a few years because they have no plan. We really don’t want that to happen.

We refuse to give them money as they will spend it on rubbish- that has always been the trend.
– Anna

This story of your parents is a really great example of the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” Your parents have to make the choice to do something for themselves and there’s nothing you can do to make them do it.

The question you should be really asking yourself is what you feel your role is in their life going forward. If you do not want them living in your basement in a few years, you have to make that clear, period. They are making choices right now that lead them directly to your basement, and if you don’t want them to be there, you have to say or do something.

What can you do? You can simply tell them that you’re not going to give them any housing in the future unless they change some of their behaviors, that you won’t help them unless they take some steps to help themselves. You can start financially preparing for this outcome right now – in fact, I’d definitely plan on that.

However, don’t expect that anything you do is going to change their behavior. They have to come to that conclusion on their own and there’s almost nothing you can do that will force them to change in the way you want them to.

Q2: Vanguard Personal Advisor Services thoughts

I’m happy to report my husband and I have more than $50,000 in Vanguard accounts. We still feel somewhat lost. I’m curious what your opinion/experience is with the Vanguard Personal Advisor Services.
– Kim

It’s a very good service for people who want to interact with a real person to discuss their accounts. Compared to other services of similar quality, the fees that are charged are quite low.

The reason it doesn’t get universal praise, in my opinion, is that the minimum account balance for this service is $50,000. That’s a lot of money. It’s not a service that’s helpful at all to people just starting off.

There’s also the issue of “robe-advisors.” Some companies offer “advising” services that are run completely by computer algorithm that charge less than what Vanguard charges. You basically run through a long questionnaire and the robe-advisor calibrates itself to match your answers. This can be good, but it also assumes that the robo-advisor is programmed well and that the questions don’t miss anything important, something that simple human intuition could find.

I personally don’t use an investment advisor at all and make my own investment choices. It can be a little scary at times, but it’s also free and it forces me to really understand how I’m investing and why. I would strongly encourage you to use an investment advisor as “training wheels,” meaning that you’re utilizing them to understand the logic behind investment decisions until you can do it on your own.

Q3: A major decision on siding

Trent, we have been saving up for new siding for our house as its near the end of its life. We had a hailstorm recently that damaged one side of the house so our insurance will replace it. We are unfortunately not going to have enough saved to cover residing the whole house after what insurance will give us. We want to do a higher quality, low maintenance siding instead of replacing with a similar siding. I see these options: 1) only replace the one side with a similar product, continue saving and replace all the siding in a couple years with the higher quality siding (including replacing the new siding the insurance paid for), 2) replace all siding now with cheap vinyl siding which we can likely afford with our savings, 3) replace all siding now with higher quality siding and take a loan for the $10k or so we’re short and work like mad to pay it off in a year or less, 4) replace all siding now and raid our vacation and new vehicle savings to pay for it with cash. Any thoughts on what the best option is? It seems silly not to take advantage of the money insurance will give us (about $5k after deductible) to reside the house as we were planning, but I’m not in love with any of my options for getting the house resided now.
– Lane

If the siding is in bad shape and is in a situation where it’s easily damaged, you’re probably making the best choice to repair it all with high quality siding right now. It’ll improve the value of your home substantially. It’ll also be less expensive to do it all at once than to do it in bits. So, I’d eliminate #1 and #2 right off the bat.

The question comes down to how you’ll pay for that siding. In my eyes, it depends heavily on your vehicle and your vacation plans. Are you actually very close to replacing that car? Or is it a few years down the road? Could you maybe wait an extra year to replace that car? What about the vacation? Were you saving for a very expensive one? Could you choose a more modest vacation this year or next and just postpone the expensive plans?

If those things are true, then my vote is to pay for the siding out of your savings and then rebuild your savings for those other goals over the next year or so. This will keep you from going into any kind of debt while also keeping your house safe and increasing the value.

In general, the best solution is to do things in a high quality way when they’re on the verge of being critically necessary and paying for those things in cash when possible, because doing things in a quality fashion means that they’ll last and you won’t have to worry about it again.

Q4: Looking for health insurance

My husband and I are contemplating about early-retirement, but finding an independent affordable health insurance seems to be the biggest challenge for early retirement. My husband is in his early 50s, and I am in my 40s. Do you have any suggestions where to look for affordable healthcare insurance?
– Stacy

This is a very difficult question to answer because it is incredibly difficult to predict what health care will look like in America even five or ten years from now. The political dealings going on in Washington guarantee only that you can’t rely on anything going forward. It seems as though all outcomes are on the table, from an almost unrestricted private health care market to a nationalized health care system and everything in between, depending on how the political winds shift over the next several years.

Because of that, many providers are unsurprisingly being very careful about what policies they offer. They can’t assume that they’ll be competing under the same rules even a few months from now, so they don’t want to get locked into an uncompetitive policy.

My best suggestion for you right now is to wait. See what happens with the current health care debate in Washington. See what ends up actually coming out of Congress, because it’s very unclear what they will actually produce. Instead, if I were you, I’d save for a worst case scenario. Assume you’re going to be paying for most things out of pocket until you reach Medicare age, and even then, assume Medicare will provide only some coverage.

In other words, save big for now and be patient. Start shopping around when retirement is actually imminent and you’ve actually saved some additional money for health care coverage.

Q5: Canceling a credit card unexpectedly

I had always read that it was good to have some credit card/s, even if you don’t use them to help with your credit score….a measure of available credit to how much is utilized. I have a credit score of around 830, so I guess this won’t hurt me too bad, but I got a letter from Chase Visa telling me that due to inactivity that they were going to close my account in 60 days from the date of the letter. It went on to say that regardless of whether I started using it again or not, they were going to close the account (which I heard and have read is worse for your credit score than just holding the card and not using it). Can they do this? It does say to call them with any questions, but that seems odd to me.
– Veronica

They absolutely can do this. Card issuers can close a card for any reason. If they don’t believe that you are a profitable customer for them, they’ll likely close your account.

In general, customers who rarely use their card and then pay the card off in full each month are usually not profitable customers for card issuers. If they can’t make at least some income from you, they’re not going to want to keep maintaining the card.

Your best approach is to just use the card for some limited amount of purchasing. Use it solely for your grocery store trips, but use it consistently, and pay it off fully each month. If you do that, then the credit card issuer is at least making money from the point of sale (when you use a credit card, the credit card company charges the store you shop at some amount for the transaction, meaning that the company makes a little money), so they’ll keep you on.

Q6: Safety of online banks

Are they safe & insured? [O]nline banks [seem] to have way better interest then the brick and mortar do. Like Memory bank pays 1.50%, Everbank pays 1.45%. I never heard of these. I will shortly have appx $100.000 to “invest” or put into savings.
– Kelly

Online banks generally do beat brick and mortar banks for savings account rates. They do this by, well, not having the expenses of a brick and mortar bank. They don’t need to maintain a building or maintain employees on site. They just need a website with good security and maybe a customer service person or two to maintain a phone line. Of course, for customers, that can be a drawback – if you have an account issue, it can be essentially impossible to interact with someone face to face with an online bank.

Many of the better known online banks are just divisions of large banks. For example, Everbank is owned by the large financial services company TIAA and MemoryBank is a division of Republic Bank and Trust. Thus, most of them are pretty safe.

Should you use one? I think online banks are great for savings accounts, especially for specific goals like saving for a car. However, I would be hesitant to have one be my primary bank for core services like checking and emergency fund savings, because of the relative difficulty of customer service in a tough situation.

Q7: Roth IRA or 457?

I am a public employee and my employer offers a 457 deferred compensation plan. They contribute 1.5% to the plan and employees can contribute an additional amount if they wish. I also have a Roth IRA that I contribute to regularly. I’m wondering how I should divvy up my contributions. Half to the 457 and half to the Roth? Or put all my contributions towards one or the other? I don’t know which would be more advantageous. I’m 38, so I have a ways to go yet until retirement.
– Mary

My approach is to usually split your savings between pre-tax and post-tax savings options. In other words, I’d add your employer’s contribution to what you intend to save yourself, divide that number in half, and then contribute that much to the Roth IRA and contribute the rest to your 457.

The reason for that is it’s really hard to predict what future government tax policy will be like. Will taxes go up? Will they go down? It’s also hard to predict what will happen with your salary between now and retirement age. Will it go way up? Will it hold steady? Will it go down?

Through all of that uncertainty, putting some money into both pre-tax and post-tax options is a wise move.

Q8: Old VHS “home movies”

My husband coached a high school girl’s basketball team 30 years ago. To this day, we have a small trunk full of VHS tapes of all these games. We no longer have a VHS player and haven’t for years. Even when we did, he never watched them. I’ve suggested contacting one of the former players and asking if she’d like them. Am I being unrealistic? Or do you have any other ideas?
– Annie

If you have no interest in watching the tapes again, I would offer them to former players. Contact as many as you can and offer the tapes to them. If they’re not interested, I would discard the tapes.

If you think that there is any chance that they would ever be watched again, I would, as soon as possible, make a digital copy of those tapes. VHS does not last forever and there’s a good chance that those tapes have already experienced some degradation in quality which will only get worse going forward. There are a number of ways to do this at home, but you may find it easier to simply hire a service to handle it for you.

In the end, the reality is that no one likely wants these tapes at all. See if anyone wants them and, if not, let the last thirty years that they sat around collecting dust be your guide and discard them.

Q9: Pay down mortgage before retirement?

My husband is [in his late fifties] and I am [in my late forties] and we live in a high COL state. We have $220K in savings and I currently contribute about $10K to a Roth IRA and a 403B at work. If everything goes accordingly, I will also collect a state pension at the age of 62. My husband will begin collecting his pension in about two years and he plans to take social security benefits at 62 at a reduce rate. His pension will be smaller than his current salary but I will work an additional 12 years after he retires. Here is my question:

Given the amount of liquid savings, will it be smart for us to begin making extra principal payments to our mortgage or should we continue to save as much as possible. We already put our two sons through college with no student loans and we carry no consumer debts. Our mortgage is our only debt and we owe $265K.

What’s your take on our situation?
– Carrie

First of all, do you intend to live in your current home when you retire? Is this a home of the size that you wish to maintain in your retirement years, or will you be downsizing?

If you’re going to downsize, the sale of your home will wipe out the mortgage you currently have, so this becomes much easier – you should save for retirement first in this case.

If you’re not going to downsize, you need to take a look at what your monthly cash flow will look like in retirement if you continue to have a mortgage payment. How much will you need to spend each month? Each year? Will you have sufficient income to cover all of those expenses?

If you can easily handle your normal mortgage payment and all other expenses in retirement, then I’d simply save more for retirement. If it’s going to be difficult to handle that mortgage payment, you should be planning to eliminate that mortgage by the time you retire.

The thing to always remember is this: over the very long term, it’s likely that your retirement savings will do a little bit better than early mortgage payments (assuming you have a prime mortgage around 5% interest). However, that’s over the long term – over time periods of less than a decade, that’s far from a guarantee. If you’re trying to pull off retirement with your house as is in the next ten to fifteen years, you want to go with the safest route, and that likely involves paying off that mortgage before you retire, even if it means a little less in retirement savings.

Q10: Dental expenses

Do you have any experience or know those who do for this scenario?

35 year old person on disability/medicare has been told s/h needs dental implants to:
a – remove several teeth (both upper and lower) need to be removed urgently
b – bone loss in both arches due to poor dental health
c – no commercial (private) health insurance but has medicare due to medical disability (unrelated to this issue)
d – many dental phobias which have contributed to poor dental health
e – recommendation from 3 providers that implants not dentures are best to handle this issue.

Cost of the dental procedures is approximately $30K, none of which is covered by medicare. Due to previous medical issues, credit score which was in 800’s has been hit hard – down to the 500’s so unattractive rates to borrow the money if s/he can even find a lender who would accept the deal.

Any thoughts on overturning the ‘not medical necessary’ rule medicare has assigned to dental implants (as cosmetic) or on how to obtain funding/loans for this case.
– Jerry

Even with your description, it is not clear to me whether this is a health issue or a cosmetic issue. If it is genuinely a health issue, I would continue to work with Medicare to obtain coverage for the procedure.

However, Medicare is pretty clear in not covering procedures done primarily for cosmetic reasons. There generally has to be a health reason for the procedure to be covered. If you can’t show that there is a health reason – no matter how strong the cosmetic reason – Medicare probably won’t cover it.

In that case, you’re in a tough position. Your best approach is to talk to dentists directly about financing and see what options are available. The person in question here is not alone in these kinds of situations.

Q11: Cashing out life insurance

I’m a 29 year old who has been working at the same company for almost 4 years now. I’ve had pretty significant credit card debt during this time frame. At worst, it was about $19k, and at best (now) it’s in the $17k range. I’m fortunate to have a car that is paid off and student loans that are paid off due to a life insurance payout from my mom.

I’ve been considering cashing out my 401k to help sort out my debt. An article you wrote in 2014 really spoke to me and made me strongly consider going the cash out route.

I just got off the phone with T. Rowe Price and was told that because of my plan, I cannot pay the penalty and cash out before 59 1/2, period. I have a little over $14k in my retirement account. I understand that I’d be paying about a $4k penalty to access that money.

Why am I so gung ho about cashing out my retirement? Remember that previous bit about my mom’s life insurance? She died at 55. Most of her relatives didn’t make it to 60. It’s very likely that I inherited the same cancer genes. I also saw my parents lose most of their retirement savings due to the economic crash of 2008. Simply put, I’m afraid to see what’s going to happen to our economy in the upcoming years and would rather access my money sooner than later to avoid my parents’ fate.

I’m eager for your advice. Is there another way to cash out my 401k? Would this only be possible if I left my company?

My credit is currently pretty great. I’ve been avoiding interest by shuffling the debt around by balance transfers. I’ve really buckled down on my savings lately, but even with using tools like Mint, paying down my debt looks like an arduous task.

Please let me know what you would suggest. I know that conventional wisdom states that cashing out a 401k is a bad move, but when I’m speaking realistically, I may never see that money due to my cancerous family history. I agree with what you stated in that article- paying down my debt now would be the best peace of mind move I could make.
– Dana

Many 401(k) plans only allow hardship withdrawals or else restrict you to only being able to borrow money against a 401(k) before retirement age. If your plan doesn’t allow you to make a withdrawal, there’s essentially no way around it beyond actually retiring early.

The first thing I would do if I were you is get a genetic screening and find out whether you actually do have the genes that significantly increase your chances of those types of cancers. You have the capacity to gain that knowledge, and having that knowledge will make a lifetime of difference in terms of your planning. Operating without knowing this key information is like going on a flight without a flight plan – a very bad idea.

As for the debt itself, I would look into tools like 0% balance transfers. Try to keep as much of the credit card debt on 0% balance transfers as possible while you pay it off, and do everything possible to avoid adding more to it. This means having an emergency fund of some kind to keep small emergencies from derailing you.

Q12: Thoughtful reading during recovery

39 years old. Recently in a car accident that has me temporarily in a wheelchair and facing 2-3 years rehab work to walk normally again. Had to quit my job but received a very large settlement and full coverage of costs of rehab and medical care so finances are taken care of for a long while but probably not enough to retire. I was on a positive financial path before all of this but I want to come out of this in a couple of years ready for the next chapter in my life. I have some long days of doing very little and want to do some reading to encourage thinking about life plans. Do you have some recommended books? Not so much financial but “rethinking life” and “planning life” books?
– Dennis

There are a lot of good books that address this area. The big question really is how much hand-holding do you want?

Some books offer some very directed approaches to rethinking life, guiding you carefully through an organized plan and a series of exercises to help you tease out these answers. Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans is a very good example of this kind of book. I think of these as being more practical.

On the other hand, you have the more philosophical books. These books don’t guide you to an answer, but instead fill you with a lot of food for thought that will usually allow you to naturally find the answers you seek. Here, I think of books like Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations or The Art of Happiness by Epicurus. I personally have been finding a great deal of value in these types of books over the last few years.

Given the time you have, I’d try both styles. Pick up the books listed above at your local library and give them a read. See where they lead you and which one clicks with you the most, then move on based on recommendations for similar books that you might find at Amazon. Good luck!

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 Parents, Siding, Online Banking, VHS Tapes, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Women: what I would tell my younger self about money

Moneywise readers – along with TV presenter Kate Garraway – give their top money advice for women in their 20s. Tips include why a man should not be a financial plan and why it’s essential to start saving and investing.

“If you’re given a choice between money and sex appeal, take the money. As you get older, the money will become your sex appeal,” said iconic American actress Katharine Hepburn (pictured right), best known for her roles in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, in which she played strong sophisticated women.

• Gender pension gap stretches to £6,400 a year

And in 2017, her advice seems relevant still. Several studies this year have demonstrated that women’s finances fall further behind those of men as they grow older:

• Female finances fall behind over time, thanks to the pay gap and the tendency to stay in cash. While more than four in 10 (43%) women save into a Cash Isa, only nine out of every 100 women invest in a Stocks & Shares Isa. (Source: Fidelity International)
• Women who work 42 years face a £47,000 pension fund shortfall when they come to retire. On average, men under the age of 35 received £217 more in employer pension contributions than females of the same age each year. (Source: Zurich, which looked at more than 250,000 pension plans held by the firm between 2013 and 2016).
• Men have almost three times the pension savings of women. The average man has pension savings worth £73,600, compared to £24,900 for the typical woman. (Source: Aegon)

As part of a feature on women and divorce earlier this year, we asked female Moneywise readers to reflect on what they wish they had done differently with their money earlier in their adult lives and to write in with their top tips for a woman in her 20s.

Here are some of the best tips:

“Separate need from want”

Always calculate, using your actual daily take-home pay, how many days of paid work it would take to pay outright, in cash, for any item that is completely desired, but non-essential, after monthly bills and rent are covered, and with the equivalent of at least one month’s rent and bills in hand. With regular practice, this habit quickly separates need from want and means you can make choices about your future yourself. This will mean that you can consider walking away from your job(s)/relationship/educational course, when you want to.

SD – wishes to remain anonymous

“Avoid debt”

Avoid getting into debt where possible for non-essential purchases. Your friends may be credit fans, but in years to come it will catch up with them. Think… if you can’t pay for it, you can’t afford it. The only ‘good’ credit is a mortgage.

Joy Kite

“Actively manage your money”

So many of my friends sat back and did nothing with their money whereas I made sure I was on top of current account offers/incentives, Quidco offers, credit card offers/incentives and utilities offers/deals, which sometimes resulted in me having a few extra hundred pounds to spend (or save) in a year.

Jen Ingram

“Keep money separate from your partner”

If married or living with a partner, have a joint account into which money for household bills is paid and into which set sums are transferred from the personal accounts of each person. Otherwise, keep other money entirely separate and have separate credit cards without the other person being a second named person. However, in the event of a married couple splitting up, do not think that each individual automatically keeps the money in their separate accounts. Generally, lawyers add up all the assets of the couple and divide it in two so if the woman has more money than the man, then she may lose some of it.

Anne Fletcher

“Make your own retirement plan”

Do not rely on a man to fund your retirement. So much can happen in 40 years that you don’t know what situation you are going to be in when you are in your 60s. You can only rely on yourself, even if it’s only £10 a month to start with, it has plenty of time to grow.

Dianne David

Contribute to your pension, ensure you take an active role in reviewing your pension every year via the annual statement and increase contributions when you get a salary increase – as pensions need time to grow.

Kathleen Wheater

“Start saving and investing now”

Start saving NOW and do not think that it is only for the very remote future. Those savings will make you feel more confident NOW, and will give some peace of mind NOW too!

Elena C

Investing might feel difficult if you feel you know nothing about money, but there are lots of great resources available and you can take it step by step. If you feel there’s plenty of time left and no need to rush, I recommend looking up some graphs on what a difference it makes to the outcome if you wait even just 10 years. That should work as a kick up the backside!

Jenni Syrjala

Keep your own separate savings account and start investing early. Also I would say invest in your own property, even if it has to be rented out, then you have somewhere to call your own. Best to keep something that is just for you because you never know when divorce will happen and if you have to start out again as I did in my 40s, with hardly any equity in our house, it would have been something I would have told my younger self.

Fiona Willcox

Set up a standing order into an Isa and every time you get a salary increase divide it into two. One half goes into the Isa, while the other is to do as you please, knowing you are building up a safety net for the future.

Julie Wilson

• EU pension gender gap hits 40%

TV presenter Kate Garraway: “What I would tell my 20-year-old self about money”

I have been thinking about this question a lot recently because I am turning 50. It’s a big birthday that definitely makes you look back at your life and wonder if you should have done things differently and also wonder what the next few decades might hold.

I even wrote a book about it, called The Joy of Big Knickers (Or Learning to Love the Rest of Your Life), in which I get the best advice from experts and celebrities and face my own fears about getting older. I put in a whole chapter on money, because research shows being poor is second only to feeling lonely and invisible in the top things we fear about ageing.

• Cancelling child benefit costs 50,000 women 'vital' pension rights

So what would I do differently? Well, in my 20s I lived life for the now. I didn’t have a mortgage, a pension or a savings account, so I wasn’t financially investing or planning for my future. I did, however, work very hard, long days (and nights!), grateful to have got a first job in the industry I loved and determined to make the most of it. And in one way it paid off.

At the moment, I’m lucky enough to have a job in TV and a job in radio. So by most people’s standards, I’m Richard Branson. Only it’s all a bit of an illusion. I’m one of those people who appears to inhabit a glittering world, where thanks to my job I travel to every corner of the planet and go to all the latest shows and movies, often for free. I’m invited to fantastic parties. I get a ready-made social life out of it.

• Men’s pensions three times greater than women’s

But while I am definitely wealthy compared to many, the reality alas doesn’t match the fantasy. Our car is 10 years old. Like so many people I’ve not paid as much into my private pension as I should have. We still have a big mortgage on our house. And, let’s face it, I’m unlikely to carry on earning what I earn now until the new retirement age – how many 65-year-olds do you see on TV?

So the advice I would give to my 20-year-old self is: Yes, live your life; work hard and party hard because that is how you will become you. But do put some financial foundations in place while you can. Get yourself a pension, even while you are still studying. Money put in when you’re younger is worth much more and before you have a family or other commitments, it’s easier to save.

Start a savings account as soon as you start earning and set up a direct debit to whisk it away the second your pay cheque is in, so you don’t ever see what you’re missing. It may not be much to start with but locked away it will build up and will be a very good start when you want to find a deposit for a house. And try to remember even if now 30 years old seems ancient, in a blink of an eye you will be 50 and glad of what you did back then.

Moneywise has three copies of Kate Garraway’s book, The Joy of Big Knickers (Or Learning to Love the Rest of Your Life), to give away. To win a copy, email editor@moneywise.co.uk, telling me your favourite quote about money from a celebrity or famous person.

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Just Some Patriotic Financial Advice From People Who are on Our Money

Break Out of the Home Office With These Meetups for Freelancers

Many people who work from home can find that sitting alone in their room is less than inspiring. Yes, the dress code is more lax and your fridge is just a few steps away, but being your sole motivator can get to be difficult day after day.

Enter work-from-home groups, aka coworking. It’s a growing community built entirely of people who work from home but who want — and need — people around them so they can do their job and do it better.

Places like meetup.com, Jelly and ShareDesk list a variety a groups for telecommuters and freelancers with no office to come together and do their jobs.

People who have been a part of these meetups say having other telecommuters working around them keeps them focused — it’s as if everyone is keeping an eye on each other. Of course, there’s also the benefit of having a diverse crowd of thinkers around, because you never know what you’ll learn in the process.

The Trend of Work-From-Home Meetups

A report put out by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s online MBA program shows 45 percent of the U.S. population now works from home. According to the report, between 2014 and 2015 the number of people who work remotely rose by 27 percent.

When it comes to coworking, the numbers are comparable. Deskmag, an online magazine, reported the Global Coworking Survey found by the end of 2017 almost 1.2 million people throughout the world will have worked in a coworking space. To put it in perspective, the survey shows nearly one in five coworking spaces has 150 or more members in it.

Benefits of Coworking

Networking

It’s no secret that meeting and connecting other people in your field works in favor of your career. But for a lot of freelancers who don’t always have the same steady office group to rely on, it’s hard to make it to networking events or mixers. Coworking makes networking possible while you’re doing what you get paid to do.

Walter Magiera, Jelly’s director of sales, notes these meetups also promote social engagement, allowing participants to “hear about the latest events in the area, trends in the marketplace and have some good, in-person conversation.”

The New Jersey Institute of Technology report shows 38 percent of the people freelancing are between 18 and 34 years old. Ages aside, individuals who cowork are, more than likely, to have a similar career background.

“People who participate in co-working are typically entrepreneurs, soloprenuers and team members of a startup company,” says Magiera. “Occasionally, an individual who works for a large company will also attend a coworking event.”

From Magiera’s experience, many of the people who come together to cowork are those looking to share ideas and gain knowledge, which he says can be as simple as learning how to obtain clients or run a business more smoothly.

Less Distractions

For people like Jerome Chang, coming together with other people who work remotely is a way to be more productive. Chang is the founder of BLANKSPACES, a coworking company comprised of various office spaces, so he knows a thing or two about working out of the home.

His opinion is that a coworking setup eliminates the many distractions of being at home. Whether that’s pets or cleaning that needs to be done, it helps concentration.

“Working alone can cause people to procrastinate and distract themselves with random stuff,” Chang says.

Of course, the simple formula is less procrastination and distraction equals more productivity. It’s a win for employees and employers.

Social Interaction and Inspiration

For people like Chang who run a coworking space, these meetups are as much about a social experience as they are about a work experience.

As mentioned before, working from inside an empty house or apartment can get lonely and it isn’t possible to go out every day. However, meeting up with people, in a makeshift work space incorporates that social experience that working remotely lacks.

For people like Oliver Whitham, the founder of the Austin Virtual Workers meetup group, the benefits include having an environment that supports people getting their work done.

Whit’s group has now grown to more than 1,200 members — a testament to how beneficial these meetups are for doing your job and networking with people you might not normally have met.

“First and foremost, if other people around you are working, it’s actually far easier to concentrate yourself,” Whitham explains. “I’ve had people attend a meetup and afterwards mention that it’s the most productive day they’ve had. Beyond that, there’s a lot of intangibles. Networking, knowledge sharing, a support base, and even friendships.”

How to Join a Coworking Group

There isn’t a set rule on how and where to set up a coworking space. Browse the web and you can find a conglomeration of places for at-home workers to meet up. While websites like Meetup, Coworker and ShareDesk are a good place to start, there are other search engines that can help narrow it down.

A great option, especially for freelancers who job hop, is Find Workspaces, which lets individuals browse coworking locations by city, state or space and boasts a directory with more than 500 spaces.

Because Chang’s company has several locations throughout California, members have more options where they can do their work. For someone who freelances, this can be useful as you’re not limited to one location.

In other places, freelancers and telecommuters rent office space to share during the workweek. Working remotely isn’t limited to just open office spaces, though.

Now, cafes are taking notice of the trend and becoming popular for people wanting a more casual work environment. Finding a coffee shop with a coworking initiative takes little more than a quick search on the internet. Cafes like Catalyst in Orlando provide different options for coworking and usually work through a signup process.

Or, if you’re someone who is a part of Jelly – Entrepreneurs of Central Florida, you might be meeting in a person’s home one day and a coffee shop the next. If you, like many freelancers, already have an affection for the local coffee shops, one of the best ways to see if they have coworking events is just to ask or, if there isn’t one, start your own.

Starting your own coworking group can be as easy as setting up a Facebook page or listing your group on Meetup. Keep in mind, on Meetup, there is usually a fee to put a group listing. However, if you want your coworking group to grow, like Chang’s, then the financial investment will be worth it in the end — more so if you’re charging a membership fee.

Human interaction still plays a large role in the desire to co-work and, as Mageira points out, it’s helping telecommuters overcome feelings of isolation to create a more positive work environment.

Nichole is a freelance writer who knows about at-home distractions. You’ll usually find her tapping away at her laptop in the corner of a coffee shop near the beach.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, one of the largest personal finance websites. We help millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. In 2016, Inc. 500 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the No. 1 fastest-growing private media company in the U.S.

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10 Companies That Can Help You Make Money By Designing T-Shirts

By Kimi Clark So you've thought of it: Taking your design ideas and putting them out there for everyone to see. But you have questions. Does it cost a lot of money to get started? Do I have to use my own designs? Can I set my own prices? Where will I sell my T-Shirts? […]

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Rebalancing: The Simple Way to Keep Your Investment Plan on Track

The best investment strategies are fairly easy to maintain.

Once you’ve figured out how much to save, which accounts to use, and what your asset allocation should be, it’s primarily a matter of choosing a few low-cost index funds to implement your plan and letting it ride. For the most part, you should be ignoring the ups and downs of the market and focusing all your energy on putting more money into your accounts.

But even the best investment plans require a little bit of maintenance, and rebalancing is one of the most important ongoing tasks that keeps your plan on track.

What Is Rebalancing?

Every good investment plan starts with a thoughtful decision about your asset allocation. That is, what percent of your money do you want in high-risk, high-return investments like stocks, and what percent do you want in lower-risk, lower-return investments like bonds?

That one decision ends up determining about 90% of your overall investment risk and return. The specific investments you choose – the mutual funds, ETFs, stocks, and bonds – matter as well, but they’re not the driving factor.

In other words, your asset allocation is important and rebalancing is the process by which you keep your asset allocation in line through the ups and downs of the market.

As an example, let’s say that you decide on an asset allocation of 70% stocks and 30% bonds. And let’s also say that you have $10,000 invested in your 401(k).

To keep things simple, you put 70% of your 401(k), or $7,000, into a single stock market index fund, and 30% of your 401(k), or $3,000, into a single bond market index fund. With those moves you’ve nailed your target asset allocation.

However, over time the markets will move and your investments will naturally drift out of balance. Let’s say that over the course of the year stocks return 20% and bonds lose 10%. Without accounting for contributions, your 401(k) would look like this at the end of the year:

• $8,400 in stocks
• $2,700 in bonds

You haven’t made any changes, but now 75% of your money is in stocks and only 25% of your money is in bonds. You’ve drifted from your target asset allocation.

In order to bring your portfolio back in balance, you have to move $630 from your stock market index fund to your bond market index fund. Then you’re back at 70/30, and back on track.

That’s rebalancing.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Rebalancing?

So the big question here is this: Why even bother rebalancing? Why not just let your investments rise and fall with the market?

It all comes back to the main reason behind choosing an asset allocation in the first place. Essentially, it’s a risk management technique that balances your desire for long-term returns with your appetite for risk along the way. More money in stocks means the potential for higher returns, but greater risk for big losses. More money in bonds means less potential for high returns, but more certainty about getting them.

And rebalancing is simply the process by which you maintain your desired balance between risk and return. To put it another way, NOT rebalancing allows the ups and downs of the market to make your portfolio either too aggressive or too conservative, potentially making it harder to reach your investment goals.

The one downside, if you can really call it that, is that rebalancing typically leads to lower returns than not rebalancing.

The reason is that stocks tend to provide better long-term returns than bonds, meaning that most portfolios tend to naturally get more aggressive over time as the stock portion of the portfolio increases by more than the bond portion. This means that most rebalancing activity involves selling stocks in order to buy bonds, shifting you back to a more conservative portfolio with lower expected returns and less risk.

And while that may sound like a negative, remember that you’re shifting your portfolio back to the asset allocation you purposefully chose from the start. You already decided that the risk/return characteristics of that asset allocation were preferable to a more aggressive portfolio, so all you’re really doing is bringing things back in line. The sacrifice in return was expected to begin with.

With that said, there are circumstances in which rebalancing can actually increase your returns. That will tend to happen in a declining stock market – imagine the opposite of the previous example, with stocks falling 20% and bonds rising by 10%. Rebalancing in that scenario would mean buying more stocks, which have a higher expected long-term return. It can also happen when you rebalance between two investments with similar expected returns, such as U.S. stocks and international stocks.

But by and large rebalancing is a technique that prevents your portfolio from getting too risky, not something that provides superior returns.

How to Rebalance Simply and Effectively

The good news is that rebalancing doesn’t have to require a lot of effort. Here is a process you can follow to do it simply and effectively:

1. If you either use an all-in-one fund or a robo-advisor, you likely don’t have to rebalance because it’s already being taken care of for you.
2. Otherwise, setting a calendar reminder to rebalance once per year is often enough for just about everyone.
3. Remember that you don’t have to match your target asset allocation in every single account. It’s your overall asset allocation across all accounts that matters. Any individual account can be different as long as the overall sum adds up.
4. With that in mind, add up all your money in stocks across all investment accounts and all your money in bonds across all investment accounts (any money in cash can be counted as bonds). Divide each amount by your total investment balance to determine what percent of your money is in each category.
5. If you are within a couple percentage points of your target asset allocation, no action is necessary.
6. Otherwise, figure out how much money you have to move from stocks to bonds (or vice-versa) in order to get back to your target asset allocation. You can do this by multiplying your target stock percentage by your total investment balance and subtracting that number from your current stock balance.
7. If possible, make any necessary trades within tax-advantaged retirement accounts so that you aren’t taxed on the transaction. Further prioritize accounts that are free to trade in order to minimize costs as much as possible.
8. Once you’re done, set another calendar reminder for next year and get back to saving more money!

While the first time through may take a little bit of time, you should be able to complete this process in no more than an hour once you get used to it. And since you only have to do it once per year, it’s a small time commitment in order to keep your investment plan on the right track.

Matt Becker, CFP® 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.

Related Articles: 

• 401(k) Vesting: What It Is and Why It Matters
• The Pros and Cons of Investing With Robo-Advisors Like Betterment and Wealthfront
• How to Choose the Investments in Your 401(k)
• Four Reasons to Invest That Have Nothing to Do With Retirement

The post Rebalancing: The Simple Way to Keep Your Investment Plan on Track appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Get Paid for Donations? How We Used Coupons to Flip Thrift Store Finds

My husband and I are thrift shop junkies. It’s rare that a week goes by without a visit to our favorite secondhand store, Value Village.

We are always on the hunt for treasures and everyday items that save us a trip to the department store, and over the past couple of years, we’ve realized the potential to profit from all of our bargain shopping.

Over the past year, we have made over $1,000 on the side through our donations and purchases at Value Village, and this year is looking even better.

How We Get Discounts for Donations

Value Village, also known as Savers in some areas, is a for-profit consignment chain that has been in business for over 50 years.

Unlike other secondhand charity organizations like Goodwill and The Salvation Army, Value Village has a rewards program that can monetize your donations and subsidize your purchases.

They collect donations from stores and individuals like us, and donate a percentage of their profits to the over 150 charities they help sponsor, resulting in over $1.5 billion in donations just in the past decade.

Since 2015, Value Village has used a reward system to encourage donations. Whenever you drop off a bag of items, they give you a coupon in the form of a punch card.

It takes six punches to fill the card, and once full, the punch card becomes a 30%-off coupon to use when treasure hunting for yourself.

Depending on how generous the collection team is feeling, this could take a couple bags worth of clothing donations, or a couple of trips to fill the card. If the nice gentlemen and ladies on the collection team ask if you want a coupon, always say, “Yes, please” — you may even get an extra punch for having good manners.

Know What You Can Donate

We always keep a collection bag next to our door where we can recycle clothing, household items, random kitchen utensils and anything that we just don’t use anymore that may be useful to someone else.

We like to have an uncluttered home, so those bags fill up fast. This usually results in a donation at Value Village — and another 30%-off coupon in our pocket — every couple of weeks.

Most of the items we give away would be under $5 if we were trying to sell them ourselves at a garage sale, so the coupon we get in return is often a greater value to us in potential discounts. They win from our donations, and we win by not having to hold garage sales.

When deciding what to donate, it’s important to know what is accepted.

• Clothing should be clean and in decent condition

• All electronics must be in working order

• Avoid items that are illegal for businesses to resell, like used mattresses and secondhand car seats

The collection crew will sort your items later and test to make sure your electronics at least turn on, so they are accepting your items on good faith.

Basically, if you wouldn’t be willing to sell it yourself at a garage sale, they probably don’t want it either. If in doubt, check the Value Village website for guidelines.

Make the Most of 30% Off

While 30% may not sound like much, it can add up quite a bit on large purchases, so we always make the most of it.

Value Village has a lot of tag sale days, seasonal sales and weekly promotions that you can learn about ahead of time if you sign up for their marketing emails. So far, they have only emailed me once each week with the upcoming specials, which is just often enough to know what to shop for without feeling spammed.

They also have additional coupons you can earn in the form of punch cards from frequent purchases. My favorite find this month? An old LaserDisc player — yes, those LP-sized digital movie disks that were sought after before DVDs took over.

I picked it up at my local Value Village for only $10 (using my 30% off coupon of course), and I recently sold the player to a nostalgic gentleman for $75.

You never know what they might have from day to day, so it’s best to have a strategy so your lucky days could also become profitable ones.

The basic strategy we use is to always shop with ourselves in mind, as well as others, and it’s broken down into three phases.

1. Combine Shopping and Treasure Hunting

Your time — and therefore your profits — are maximized when a household shopping trip doubles as a treasure hunt.

Hubby need a new pair of gym shorts? Find the perfect pair on the rack for $5, but be sure to throw in those 2 like-new digital humidifiers that they are selling for only $15 each but sell for $240 new according to Amazon.

Before you leave the store, be sure to plug in both the food processor and the air conditioner in the electronics testing area to make sure things are chopping and whooshing as they should.

If they don’t work, you can return the appliances within a week for store credit, but it’s always smart to avoid a return trip.

With the coupon, those shorts only cost you $3.50, and you acquired a couple of sought-after appliances for $21.

2. Prepare Your Loot

Admire your hubby in his new favorite pair of gym shorts, and get to work on finding new homes for those appliances.

Wash, polish and test those humidifiers to be sure they are in top shape, and then post up some shiny pictures.

Craigslist is always a solid venue because it’s the largest local online network. You can sell anything bulky with the fastest turnaround without worrying about shipping.

To hedge your bets, you always extend your reach by posting to OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace.

We’ve tried other peer-to-peer resale sites, but we’ve found that the quality of the buyers is far lower in other platforms. We’re looking at you Letgo — more than 45 inquiries in two weeks, but zero actual buyers.

If you’ve scored a premium item that isn’t too bulky, consider shipping it to buyers instead through a posting on eBay. Try Tradesy for designer clothing items.

3. Sell For a Good Profit

Find a buyer who is seeking some relief from the summer dryness without breaking the bank, and give them a great deal on a tested portable air humidifiers for only $120 — resulting in a $99 profit for you.

On average, you should budget for 15-30 minutes to post and then sell each item with all the back-and-forth messages between you and potential buyers.

Some of your treasures will sell quickly, while others take a few weeks of renewed postings, but if you are diligent about taking a minute to respond to potential buyers quickly, you’ll see how much your minimal efforts can lead to big returns.

In the end, you made $99 within an hour worth of thrift shopping you would have done anyway, with just a small investment of your old sweaters, a bulky hair dryer and that set of mixing bowls you always thought would come in handy (they didn’t).

Pick the Right Items to Flip

In order for this strategy to work, you have to develop an eye for treasure, but if you’re ever unsure of a bargain, there are quick ways anyone can assess the basic values.

I always have my smartphone on me, and an internet search can tell you everything from the original price, origin, scarcity and possible demand.

Basically, if similar items are selling for a higher price on places like Amazon, Ebay, or Craigslist, and there isn’t an abundance of local listings, there’s a potential for profit.

After doing this for years, I’ve developed a natural radar for which items may be more trouble than they’re worth, but I still double-check my finds often before throwing them in my cart.

I’ve found the best times to score good deals is early in the morning, especially on Sundays and Mondays, because the weekends are always the busiest times for donations.

Like most people, we always seem to have plenty of stuff, but not enough cash. Thanks to our new hobby, we have downsized our hoard, made room for worthwhile treasures, and put some money away to purchase our first home which, hopefully, won’t be too far away from a Value Village.

Laura Hamilton is a Youtube vlogger for RollingDiaries and fellow Penny Hoarder who’s always looking for ways to live beyond her means. She currently resides in Seattle with her husband and her imaginary dog, Nickels.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, one of the largest personal finance websites. We help millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. In 2016, Inc. 500 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the No. 1 fastest-growing private media company in the U.S.

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Poconos' unemployment up slightly in May

Jobless rates rose in both Monroe and Pike counties in May, according to figures released today by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis.Monroe’s rate was up two-tenths of a percentage point to 6.3 percent, compared to 6.1 percent in April. But the May rate was one-tenth of a percent lower than in May 2016.The month’s increase resulted from a combination of a growing workforce/job seekers and a [...]

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A push for research

Like many teenagers, Lorynn Watt checks her phone in the morning, even before she brushes her teeth. But unlike most teens, she does it to save her life.Watt has type-one diabetes, and her phone, which is wirelessly connected to a device implanted under her skin, measures her glucose level. She probably checks it 15 to 20 times a day. It is part of a complicated daily, routine that that keeps her alive.The Junior Diabetes Research Foundation selected Watt, of Stroud Township, [...]

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This is What Science Says About People Who Pay With Fancy Credit Cards

Have you ever whipped out a flashy platinum credit card to pay your tab at a bar or restaurant?

Or have you seen someone else do it?

It looks cool, right? It’s downright impressive. Oooohhh, a platinum card. FANCY.

According to new research, however, that flashy credit card may be a sign of low self-esteem.

If you can’t afford a Porsche or a Jaguar or the latest fashions from Armani or Gucci or Fendi or Prada, then brandishing a platinum credit card in a social setting is another way of showing off a status symbol.

It can serve as an achievable way of improving your social image and building up your self-esteem, according to a new study by economists from the University of Chicago, the Sao Paolo School of Economics, UCLA, the World Bank and Harvard.

Here’s the catch: Financially, you’re better off with an ordinary credit card. A less-flashy card that offers cash back or other discounts.

An Average Joe or Plain Jane credit card might not be a self-esteem boost, but it would serve you better than that super sexy platinum card.

Not So Exclusive Anymore

Historically, gold or platinum cards came with higher credit limits. They were symbols of prestige, signifying that cardholders belonged to an exclusive club of high rollers.

That’s no longer the case.

These days, platinum cards often have higher fees than ordinary credit cards.

The economists who conducted the recent study on self-esteem and credit card use tried this experiment: They offered people a platinum card that didn’t offer any cash-back rewards.

They found that nearly half of these platinum cardholders used their flashy card in social settings — even though they had another card that would’ve gotten them cash back on their purchase.

“Platinum cardholders … appear willing to pay a cost to show off their platinum cards,” the researchers wrote.

Here’s What to Do Instead

Don’t let all that shiny platinum go to your head. Instead, just get a better credit card.

One way to do this: Sign up with a free service like Credit Sesame, which can help you search for smart credit cards, ones that might better benefit your lifestyle. It also offers tips for reducing your debts and raising your credit score.

Another option: With a cash-back rewards card, you can get paid for every dollar you spend. We recommend checking out the Barclaycard CashForward World MasterCard. You’ll earn 1.5% cash back, plus a $200 bonus for signing up.

Status Symbols: Even Pricier Than Expected

A platinum card is only one of the tempting status symbols that can backfire on you financially.

• If you buy a fancy car, you’ll pay more for auto insurance.

• If you buy a big house, you’ll probably pay more for maintenance and repairs.

• If you get a purebred dog, little Fido or Fluffy may have more health problems and inherited diseases than an undistinguished mutt.

• If you go to an expensive hairstylist, you might be paying more for the same service you’d get with a cheap haircut.

Moral of the story: Next time, skip the platinum card. Your self-esteem doesn’t need the artificial boost.

Advertiser Disclosure: Many of the credit card offers that appear on this site are from credit card companies from which ThePennyHoarder.com receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). We do not feature all available credit card offers or all credit card issuers.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He does not have a gold or platinum card. Not even a copper or tin one.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, one of the largest personal finance websites. We help millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. In 2016, Inc. 500 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the No. 1 fastest-growing private media company in the U.S.

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