9 Ways You Can Get Paid to Lose Weight (and Finally Keep That Resolution)

So many of us resolve — and then break our resolutions — to lose weight every New Year’s, it has become a cultural joke.

But what if you could get paid to lose weight? Would having a dollar amount attached to your weight loss efforts incentivize you to stick with it?

Get Paid to Lose Weight in 2018

With a multitude of paid diet plans like Weight Watchers, and the exorbitant prices attached to premier gym memberships, boutique fitness studios and fancy workout clothes, losing weight might be more readily correlated with spending money than making it.

But you don’t have to spend a ton of money to incorporate fitness into your life. You can get your fitness gear on the cheap at vendors like Target and Old Navy, and opening the front door to head out for a run is always free.

Even better? We found a surprising number of ways to get paid while getting fit. Here are nine worth trying.

Bet on Yourself

Ready to put your money where your mouth is?

No, I’m not suggesting a dollar bill diet. These apps and programs facilitate taking a small monetary risk to help you stick to your weight loss goals — and engage your competitive spirit.

Then, get rewarded at the end of your journey. It pays to achieve, in more ways than one!

1. HealthyWage

Do you have a specific number of pounds you want to lose — and the confidence that you can get the scale to match? Check out HealthyWage, where you can make a (healthy) wager on your ability to stick to your plan.

Here’s how it works: you come up with a goal weight and a time frame to achieve it, and then you lay down some money that says the scale will correspond with your plans. If you achieve your goals, you’ll have two things to celebrate: your svelte new self, and a hefty prize check cut by HealthyWage.

We don’t typically tell you about betting opportunities, but this made the cut since you’re betting on yourself. Prize amounts depend on how much you have to lose, how quickly you want to do it, and, of course, how much you bet.

Playing with their betting interface on my own, I learned I could make up to $529.41 for losing 15 pounds! That’s about $35 a pound, and about a cent per calorie cut.

Want to combine monetary incentive with the power of teamwork? HealthyWage offers team challenges, too — either with your officemates or a group set up by the site if your company’s not on board.

By the way, the earning potential for the team challenges is pretty serious: you pay $25 per month, for three months, to participate, and you could win up to $10,000.

2. DietBet

Another great option for making weight-loss wagers is DietBet, which pools participants into teams based on their goals.

Choose from the Kickstarter plan (lose 4% of your body weight in 28 days), the Transformer plan (lose 10% of your body weight in 6 months), or become a Maintainer (keep your already-shed weight off for 12 full months).

Make a bet, and either pay monthly or all up front. Then, the winners split the pot — and achieve the fitness goals of their dreams!

The best part about DietBet is it helps you get involved in a community of people with similar goals, which provides both challenge and support. And since you can keep enrolling in different plans as you progress, you stand to earn a decent chunk of change as you get stronger, healthier and happier.

3. Pact

Want to bet on your habits rather than the number on the scale?

Even the health nuts among us have off days where they need a little more motivation. Why not make a little bit of extra cash while you’re at it?

I’ve been using Pact for quite a while, and earn at least $50 per year just keeping up with the healthy habits I’d (hopefully) maintain anyway.

To participate, simply download the app and link your Paypal account. You’ll make a pact with yourself to hit the gym and track your food consumption a certain number of days per week, and if you don’t follow through, you’ll pay — as little as $5 or as much as $50 per incident.

But if you keep up with your healthy promises, you’ll earn a little bit each week — a few cents or a couple of bucks, depending on how many activities you track and how many Pacters didn’t keep up that week. (That’s where that $5-$50 wager goes!)

You can even make a Pact to eat a certain number of fruits and vegetables each week. Snap a quick photo of your salad or apple and receive rewards if the community agrees it should count! That’s right, your veggies have to be verified by outside parties, so you can’t get away with trying to claim that pizza’s a vegetable.

Worried because you’re active, but don’t have a gym membership? Don’t fret: Pact syncs with apps like RunKeeper so your motion matters, no matter how you get moving.

Keep Track — and Rack Up the Cash

Counting calories and tracking steps helps you hold yourself accountable for your choices — and makes it easy to see which of your habits need improvement.

If you’re planning to track your fitness through digital apps, lots of programs will help you earn a little extra money! Here are a few.

4. Higi

The last time I was at Publix to pick up a prescription, I settled in to wait the half hour it apparently takes to put 10 pills into a small orange bottle… and noticed a blood pressure kiosk set up conveniently in the waiting area.

Curious, and with time to spare, I sat down and strapped in. 116/76 — and it told me my pulse, weight and BMI, too! I was asked to create a username so I could track my results over time, and thus, I became a user (and fan) of Higi.

What I didn’t know was that I could earn rewards just for keeping track of my vitals and maintaining healthy habits. Some of these are really generous — $35 toward HelloFresh! Yes, please.

5. Walgreens

If you shop at Walgreens regularly, you know their Balance Rewards points can go a long way for saving money on essentials. What if you could earn even more Balance Rewards points, just by tracking the healthy habits you’re keeping up with this year?

If you track your caloric intake with MyFitnessPal, your jogs with RunKeeper, or your steps with your FitBit, you can! Check out all their Balance Rewards healthy choices offers. They also reward other popular resolutions, like quitting smoking.

6. Achievement

Formerly known as AchieveMint, this app is so appealing, there used to be a waitlist.

With Achievement, you can sync up the fitness tracking apps you’re already using to earn real rewards like Visa gift cards. Heck, you’ll probably learn about a few new tracking apps, since Achievement supports over 30 of them!

Cash In on the Fitness You’ve Already Earned

Even if you’re already living a healthy lifestyle, you might be missing out on steep discounts — and even earnings! Here’s how to maximize the payoff on your hard-won fitness.

7. Teach Your Healthy Ways

Take advantage of the January increase in ambition, and teach a hopeful newbie the skills that won you that rockin’ bod. Bonus: if working out is your job, it’ll be easy to keep the pounds off!

You could lead a boot camp, or sink some time and money into becoming a certified personal trainer or yoga instructor.

8. Get a Sweaty Side Gig

Don’t have the teacher gene? Not to worry! There are still sweaty jobs out there for you.

Postmates hires bike contractors to deliver goods to customers on the fly, and you get to set your own hours.

Like to get outside? If a thirst for adventure is close to your heart, you could become a river rafting guide or trail builder (and you’ll earn a nice wage, too!).

9. Check With Your Health Insurance

When you’re at your healthiest, your insurance company has to pay for your care less often. So it’s in their best interests to keep you fit!

Lots of different insurance companies offer fitness incentives, from gym membership reimbursements to waivers for commercial diet plans.

For example, BlueCross and BlueShield offers exclusive health-related deals to its members through Blue365, so you can save money on the goods and services that keep you healthy and active. Humana’s Go365 program rewards your smart choices with 10% savings off healthy products at Walmart.

Whoever your insurer is, give them a ring and see what they can offer you for living a healthy lifestyle.

Get Motivated and Make it Work!

The key to achieving any goal is to create new behaviors — and sustain them. You’ve heard it before, but it’s true: Weight loss requires a lifestyle change, not just a quick-fix diet.

By tying money to your new healthy habits, you’re more likely to keep them up. Fitness is a great reward in and of itself, but extra earnings are definitely a good reason to stay on the wagon!

Jamie Cattanach is a freelance writer and a native Floridian. She’s passionate about learning, literature, chocolate and finding ways to live the good life as cost-effectively as possible. You can wave hi to @jamiecattanach on Twitter.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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How Mastering These Six Food Staples Can Make Cooking at Home Inexpensive and Super Easy

Over the years, I’ve written several different lists of inexpensive food staples with an eye towards looking for foods that are incredibly inexpensive and yet are flexible enough to go with lots of different meals and foods. I particularly like this one that focuses on foods sorted by cost per calorie.

However, I rarely go beyond that and actually talk about how to really use them at home to save money. Sure, you might know that it’s cheap to buy some of the items on this list, but transforming that into anything tasty, convenient, and meaningful in your kitchen is another story entirely. Particularly for people new to home cooking, a big bag of uncooked rice or a pile of fresh produce seems intimidating. What do you do with it?

Today, I want to talk about six inexpensive staples I actually use all the time at home and some of the simplest ways I know of to prepare them. I hope this guide will help you get started with making foods at home in an inexpensive way.

Rice

Rice is the most important grain in the world in terms of caloric intake, making up one fifth of the calories consumed by humans worldwide. For many, many people, it forms the backbone of their diet. Yet it’s often overlooked in America, which doesn’t have a major agricultural or culinary tradition centering around rice.

Yet, rice is an incredibly inexpensive and incredibly flexible food that works so well in such a wide variety of dishes. It deserves to be a significant part of any frugal kitchen.

First, let’s look at the cost. A pound of dry white rice can be found for $0.69, on average. It triples in size when cooked, so the actual cost of a pound of cooked white rice is somewhere around $0.25, including the cost of the water and the energy to cook it. That’s astounding.

Of course, there are many variations on rice with different price points, but most of them trend toward the very inexpensive end of the spectrum.

The question is what do you do with dry rice once you get it in the home. You’ve bought a bunch of rice. Now what?

The easiest method I’ve found, in terms of pure convenience, is to use a rice cooker. Rice cookers can often be found at secondhand stores for just a dollar or two, so the expense isn’t that great, and they’re incredibly easy to use. Generally, you just add rice, add water up to the appropriate line for the amount and type of rice, turn on the rice cooker, choose the mode matching the type of rice in there, and hit “Start.” At some point in the next thirty minutes to two hours, you’ll have a bunch of cooked rice.

Once you have cooked rice, you can easily store it in the refrigerator for use in the next several days. In fact, I have a friend who just cooks rice as part of a routine three times a week, just putting it in the fridge when done, so that he always has rice on hand for any meal.

One great tip: cooking rice with broth instead of water imbues a lot of flavor into it. If you happen to have some broth on hand, just use that instead of the water and the rice will absorb that flavor like a sponge. (It’s easy to make your own broth, too – just save scraps of a certain type, whether it’s vegetables, chicken scraps and bones, beef scraps and bones, whatever – and put them in a slow cooker all day long when covered with water, then strain out the pieces when done.)

Now that you have cooked rice on hand, what do you do with it? The possibilities are truly endless.

One simple thing to do is to add it to a soup. Rice will bulk up any soup with ease without sacrificing the flavor one bit. Just make a simple vegetable or beef or chicken soup and add some of your cooked rice to it when it’s almost done. Boom – instant heartiness.

You can fry rice really easily in a bit of oil. Just add whatever chopped vegetables or small pieces of meat you have on hand, or else scramble an egg or two before adding the rice. You can easily add any sort of flavorful sauce you wish to the mix before serving it – soy sauce is a good default, but don’t be afraid to try others.

I personally like to make “monk bowls,” which basically consist of putting some cooked rice in a bowl and topping it with my favorite proteins and veggies (or whatever I have on hand), adding a bit of sauce to the top, and warming it up.

Another nice trick is to make a casserole by mixing together 2 cups of cooked rice, 1 cup of a protein (cooked chicken pieces, cooked beef pieces, baby shrimp, tofu, tempeh – whatever), 1 cup of a chopped vegetable, 1 1/2 cups of a thick liquid (cream, a soup, something like that), and 1/4 cup of something flavorful like shredded cheese. Put it in a casserole dish or a 9″ by 13″ pan that can hold all of it, put a bit of flavoring on top (like a bit more shredded cheese), and bake it at 350 F for 30-45 min. In fact, I wrote about the greatness of this “flexible casserole” recipe years ago.

In short, if you have some sort of protein – chicken, beef, pork, eggs, tofu, tempeh, whatever – and some sort of vegetable – broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, whatever you like – you can probably make something tasty with rice. It’s just that flexible.

Dry Beans

I often talk about my love of beans on The Simple Dollar. They come in such varied sizes and flavors and culinary uses that you can almost always find at least some beans that you like. The best part? They’re really cheap and really easy to prepare.

Beans can be found for $1 to $2 per pound for most common types of beans, according to the Bean Institute. Beans also double or triple in weight after soaking and cooking, which reduces the cost to $0.33 to $1 per pound for cooked beans, depending on the type, with many beans on the lower end of that range. That’s cheap eating, my friends.

Preparing dry beans is really easy. Just put a sufficient quantity of dry beans in your slow cooker – whatever kind you like – and cover them with water so that there’s about a pinky finger of depth over the top of the beans and let them soak overnight. The beans will swallow up the moisture like a sponge. After that, pour off the water and replace it, then look up how long you need to cook that bean type in a slow cooker to cook it, as cooking times vary. You can find this with a Google search, like “black beans slow cooker time.” You’ll just turn it on low for however long you’re supposed to, drain off the remaining liquid if you so wish, and then you have a big batch of cooked beans!

As with rice, cooked beans can easily store in the refrigerator for a while in a closed container. Cook them now and use them later when you need them.

What do you do with those beans? You can do all kinds of things. Make black bean tacos or bean burritos. Mash them and cook them into refried beans. Mix them in with scrambled eggs and a bit of salsa. Puree them with a bit of olive oil and other flavorful things to make hummus or a bean dip. My favorite? Soups. All kinds of soups, from a thirteen bean soup to a bean-y chili, use beans to great effect.

Pasta

As with the above items, pasta is something that’s incredibly inexpensive, incredibly easy to prepare, and incredibly flexible on the table. It’s super cheap to buy in the store and, believe it or not, even cheaper and tastier to make yourself, though it takes some time.

In the store, dried pasta can be found for about $1 to $2 per pound and it increases slightly in weight while cooked depending on the variety. On the other hand, a pound of fresh pasta can be made for about $0.50 at home as it requires just eggs, salt, and flour.

Making it yourself takes some time but the process is very simple – you just mix two cups of flour, three eggs, and half a teaspoon of salt until it forms a yellowish dough, then knead it for about ten minutes. Let it sit for thirty minutes, then roll it out flat on a very well floured area. Fold it in thirds, roll it out super flat again, then flour both sides well and roll it up and thinly slice it. Take the individual noodles and toss them in flour and you’re ready to go. (A manual pasta machine makes this easier but costs $20 or so; a fully automatic one makes this way easier but is quite expensive.) The best part is that you can easily sneak in more flavor by adding a bit of very finely chopped herbs or finely minced garlic right into the dough.

Cooking pasta is easy. Boil some water in a pot on the stove, toss the pasta in there, check it every minute or two to see if it’s done how you like it. If it is, drain the water (or just scoop all the pasta out of the water) and serve it as you wish. That’s it. It can’t get much easier than that.

What can you do with it? You can add olive oil. You can add almost any herb you can imagine. You can add minced garlic. You can add chopped cooked meats. You can add all kinds of cheeses. You can add butter. You can add chopped vegetables. You can add chopped mushrooms. You can add any kind of pasta sauce. It’s just so flexible. Just add things that seem tasty to you and you’ll be fine.

Eggs

Eggs are very inexpensive for the amount of protein and flavor they pack into those thin shells. They’re also incredibly flexible in terms of their uses in foods.

The cost of an egg is really low – about $0.15 per grade A egg is the current national average. Naturally, you pay more for specific kinds of eggs – organic, free range, and so forth.

How do you cook eggs, then? It depends on how you like them, but it’s usually quite easy. Whole eggs can be quickly boiled to make hard-boiled eggs. They can be scrambled by simply cracking a few eggs into a bowl and stirring them vigorously with a fork and a pinch of salt, then cooking them in a skillet with a bit of butter. You can also just crack them right in the skillet and fry them – again, just have a bit of melted butter in there and flip them over when you can get a spatula under them. It takes a little bit of work to learn how to fry an egg or cook scrambled eggs, but even when you mess up, the result is still usually edible and if you mess up too bad you’ve only wasted $0.50 in food or so.

What can you do with eggs, though? The possibilities are almost endless. I dearly love hard boiled eggs and will often boil and peel a dozen to keep in the fridge in a bowl for quick snacks or meals. We often have scrambled eggs for dinner, and we occasionally will have a fried egg for breakfast. Scrambled eggs are fantastic on their own, or as a component in a breakfast burrito (wrap scrambled eggs in a tortilla with cheese, salsa, and/or other things you like). You can chop hard boiled eggs up and make egg salad quite easily. You can also simply cook them in chicken broth and have simple egg drop soup.

My favorite? I fry a couple of eggs in a skillet and then chop them up and mix them in with fried rice and a bit of soy sauce to make a delicious dish by just adding all the rice to the skillet after chopping up the egg with the spatula, then cooking the rice just a bit, then adding sauce and serving it.

Fresh Produce

Fresh produce is a key part of our weekly diet; we usually make meal plans with whatever fresh produce happens to be on sale that week. If you simply follow the sales, you’ll find yourself trying out a wide variety of vegetables and fruits over time, and that gives you a good reason to try them all and figure out what you like.

The cost is obviously variable because of what’s on sale, but you can often find a pound of the produce on special for as low as $0.25. At that price, if you don’t like it, it’s not a big deal.

How do you cook that produce? It really depends on what you have. A lot of vegetables and fruit can simply be eaten raw in a salad or just on their own. Many other types of vegetables can easily be steamed in the microwave using a simple water bath technique, as described in this great article over at the Food Lab.

What can you do with them? Again, it depends so much on the type of produce you have. Vegetables work well as a side dish with basic seasoning or as a salad. Depending on the vegetable, it can be a key ingredient in all kinds of dishes. Some vegetables are delicious if fried; others are great when you bake them; still others are boiled and mashed. The key is to research the type of produce you have and find some interesting way to prepare it. Most preparations are really easy, however. Google, as always, is your friend when looking for basic directions.

Oatmeal

My final key kitchen staple is oatmeal, either in the “rolled oats” variety or in the “steel cut” variety. Oatmeal is my morning breakfast most days, simply because it’s so easy to quickly cook in the microwave or prepare the night before in the slow cooker.

How expensive is it? Not much. Plain oatmeal costs about $0.50 a pound dry, depending on the type. Typically, steel cut oats are a bit more expensive per pound, but not overly so. I usually just buy oatmeal from the bulk bins at my local grocer, filling up a bag with the oatmeal of my choosing.

Since oatmeal can double or triple in weight when cooked in water, the cost actually goes down to about $0.25 a pound cooked.

How does one cook it, then? Oatmeal can easily be mixed with water and cooked in a microwave. You can take half a cup of steel cut oats, add two cups of water, cover the bowl with a large plate, and microwave it for five minutes. Stir it, remove the plate, and microwave it again for five minutes. You’re good to go! Rolled oats are similar – just combine half a cup of rolled oats and a cup of water and microwave in a covered bowl for three minutes. That’s it.

Another technique is to just add fruit juice to dry oatmeal and leave it in the fridge overnight, just heating it up in the morning if you like. You can also mix it with yogurt and fruit the night before and leave it all night in the fridge for a “parfait” style breakfast.

However, my favorite preparation is steel cut oats in a slow cooker. You just put the oatmeal in there the night before with some water and perhaps a few other ingredients then leave it on low overnight. Here are the details.

What can you do with oatmeal? Add sweet flavorings to your heart’s content – sugar, honey, and molasses all work. Add spices like cinnamon or nutmeg. You can toss in diced fruits or dried fruits or whatever nuts you like. You can also take it in a savory direction by adding salt or hot sauce or vegetables or scrambled eggs, even. You can also cook it with broth or stock to make a really savory oatmeal that works well for almost any meal.

Final Thoughts

These strategies are the backbone of a healthy and super inexpensive diet – and none of it is hard to prepare. Most of these items can be prepared in a slow cooker while you sleep or are at work. Most of these things can have infinite flavors, depending on what other things you mix with it – sauces, herbs, stocks, other vegetables, and so on.

Because of their low cost and enormous flexibility and easy preparation, these six items form the backbone of our diet. You’ll find at least one of these items – and often more than one – at our table for most meals.

Good luck!

The post How Mastering These Six Food Staples Can Make Cooking at Home Inexpensive and Super Easy appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Make $50 – $150 an Hour Participating in Focus Groups

By Holly Reisem Hanna I remember the first time I got called to participate in a focus group. I was a sophomore in college and money was tight. It was for a radio station that had gathered my name from a sweepstake that I had previously entered. The 2-hour segment required me to sit a room […]

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This One Simple Word Could Help Your Kids — and Your Finances

We live in a world in which consumerism hits us from all angles. And if you’re a parent, you probably know your children are not immune to the allure.

I want this.

Can we buy that?

Gimme, gimme, gimme.

While we may feel guilty denying our children’s requests — especially around special occasions or if we’re dead set on giving them a more abundant upbringing than we had — it can actually be a good thing to just say no.

The Case for Saying No

The most obvious benefit of saying no to your children’s frequent pleas for all the stuff is that it’ll help you save money.

But saying no to your kids can have positive effects beyond the financial benefits.

“Your refusals help children cope with disappointment, become resilient, hone their

decision-making abilities and recognize and respect boundaries — skills they will need

when they leave the nest,” said Susan Newman, social psychologist and author of “The

Book of No: 365 Ways to Say It and Mean It ― and Stop People-Pleasing Forever.”

“‘No’ is a beneficial learning experience,” she said.

Saying “no” can also help build a stronger individual, said Michele Borba, educational psychologist and author of “UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World.”

“Kids who are less materialistic are more ‘we’ oriented, than ‘me,’” she said. “They are more concerned about others and less worried about how they look and what they own. Their self-esteem is more authentic. But perhaps most important, research clearly shows that these children are more empathetic, caring, collaborative, compassionate and morally courageous.”

Conversely, Borba said kids whose parents say “yes” to their every request come to expect they’ll always get want they want. They grow to be less appreciative and less satisfied with what they have, she said.

Going Beyond ‘Because I Said So’

Many financial experts agree it’s good to introduce children to the topic of personal finance at a young age. But having those money discussions can be tough.

Newman recommended parents be cautious when explaining household financial limitations. She advised it’s important to reassure children not to worry about their needs being met.

“You don’t want to frighten your child, but you also want to inject a sense of reality, particularly around holidays and birthdays when the wants and wishes may escalate,” Newman said. “Be understanding of your child’s desire. Let a child know you realize he or she is disappointed. And, if true, explain that you wish you could buy what he wants.”

Borba said parents don’t have to divulge how much money they have or don’t have.

“The better approach is just to say, ‘This year we need to cut back,’” she said. “And then ask your child to prioritize. Set a money limit or toy limit. And don’t feel guilty about saying no. Your family’s health and wellbeing is always more important.”

When it comes to having these difficult chats with your children, Borba recommends delivering the information in a calm, matter-of-fact manner.

Raising Better Money Managers

While passing on all the toy-store requests can positively impact your finances immediately, it can also have lasting effects on your child’s future relationship with money.

“Being open about your inability to buy everything your child asks for can also help a child learn to be discriminating in how she spends money in the future,” Newman said. “Being realistic can set her on a path to being a thoughtful consumer.”

“Research shows that parents who are materialistic raise the most materialistic kids,” Borba said.

By setting an example of not being absorbed over materialistic items, you’ll have a better chance of raising a child who isn’t caught up in consumerism when he’s older.

Nicole Dow is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She enjoys writing about parenting and money.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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10 Simple (and Affordable) Ways to Make or Save Money With Your Spare Room

Got a Business Credit Card or Loan? Keep Commercial Debt Separate From Your Personal Credit

Businesses both small and large take on commercial debt as a way to finance projects, expand, or even to make payroll. Commercial credit cards are also popular among businesses due to the many conveniences and perks they offer.

But if you’re a small business owner who’s considering applying for commercial funding, there are a number of things you’ll want to consider before filling out any applications. While you’re researching the best rates and most attractive terms available, don’t forget to factor in the impact your new business account might have on your personal credit.

Business or Pleasure: Two Different Credit Reports

As a business owner, your company generally has credit reports that are separate from your personal credit reports. The three major business credit reporting agencies in the United States are Dun and Bradstreet, Experian (Business Credit), and Equifax (Business Credit), though there are others.

Of course, your business credit reports could be blank slates if you’ve never established commercial credit in your business name.

Business debts typically do not show up on your personal credit reports, because they aren’t personal debts. This is good news, since if those commercial debts did appear on your personal credit reports, they could lower your personal credit score and blow up your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio. Either of these could make it more difficult for you to qualify for personal financing in the future, such as a mortgage or car loan.

However, there are certainly some exceptions to this rule, and sometimes commercial accounts do find their way onto personal credit reports.

One of the most important questions you should ask a lender before applying for a new business credit card or business loan is whether the account will be reported to the three consumer credit reporting agencies (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian). If the answer is yes, then you may want to consider finding a different lender for your business financing needs.

You may be wondering: How in the world can a business debt end up on a personal credit report? Here’s how:

The Personal Guarantee

Many business credit applications contain language that will personally obligate you to be liable for your company’s debt. This is called a “personal guarantee,” or a “PG” for short.

If you sign a personal guarantee, then you’re likely agreeing to pay back the borrowed funds yourself in the event your company defaults.

Additionally, when you sign a personal guarantee, you typically give permission for the lender to report the account activity to your personal credit reports — though many lenders only report commercial accounts to the personal credit reporting agencies if the accounts go into default.

Pros and Cons of Linking Personal and Business Credit

As a business owner, it’s in your best interest to keep personal debts and business debts separated whenever possible.

If your business can borrow funds and open business accounts with lenders that don’t report to the personal credit reporting agencies, that can be a great way to shelter your personal credit from a host of potential complications (such as high utilization on credit cards, too many accounts with balances, and excessive credit inquiries).

There are, however, other downsides to consider where business debts are concerned. When you take on a commercial debt, you typically don’t enjoy the same protections afforded to you when you take on consumer debts.

CARD Act protections, for example, will not apply to business credit card accounts. Yes, there’s other legislation that may protect you when it comes to business debt, but protections are considerably less impressive for the commercial debtor when compared to the protections enjoyed by consumers.

And finally, the lender can pursue you, personally, for repayment of defaulted debt, including credit reporting and even litigation.

Alternatively, the upside is that you may not be able to qualify for business credit without putting your personal credit reputation on the line. While that’s risky, there may be no other way to fund a fledgling business idea.

But while there are likely many compelling stories of successful businesses started on the back of someone’s personal credit card account, there are just as many, if not more, that end with failed business debts weighing down the owner’s personal credit reports.

Related Articles

• A Loan to Build a Dream On: Where to Find Small Business Funding
• Business Credit Score Basics
• Best Business Credit Cards for 2018

John Ulzheimer is an expert on credit reporting, credit scoring, and identity theft. He has written four books on the topic and has been interviewed and quoted thousands of times over the past 10 years. With time spent at Equifax and FICO, Ulzheimer is the only credit expert who actually comes from the credit industry. He has been an expert witness in over 230 credit related lawsuits and has been qualified to testify in both federal and state courts on the topic of consumer credit.

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Local freight railroad breaks record

A local wheat and flour mill and the natural gas industry helped produce a record year for the regional freight railroad system that runs in Lackawanna and Monroe counties.The growth will require adding new tracks between Scranton and Carbondale to store freight cars.The Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad Co. carried a record 8,572 carloads of goods across the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority’s system, according to authority figures.That surpassed the [...]

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Pocono Township looking to replenish its police force

Pocono Township’s police force is looking to backfill its depleted workforce thinned by injury and resignations.The township hopes the new officers will start later this year.The Pocono Township Police Department is missing three of its full complement of 18 full-time officers. One officer resigned, there was the loss of Officer Dan Kresge after his election as district magistrate for Jackson and Pocono townships, and Officer Chris Staples went on permanent disability [...]

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Route 209 in Bushkill to reopen for commercial traffic

Route 209 in Bushkill will reopen to certain commercial vehicles. President Donald Trump signed a bill into law Monday by Representative Tom Marino (R-Pennsylvania) that amends the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area Improvement Act.“When a stretch of Route 209 closed to commercial vehicles in Pike and Monroe Counties, many of my constituents were left in a state of uncertainty,” the congressman said in a Monday statement. “Business owners were fearful of [...]

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This Is What Sephora Is Giving Beauty Insiders for Their Birthdays in 2018

Sephora just announced what it will include in its 2018 birthday freebie sample sets.

The makeup and skin care chain’s rewards program members, known as Beauty Insiders, will get to choose between glowing skin, hydrated lips or moisturized hair. It’s free to join the rewards program on the Sephora website or in stores.

Here’s what is in each of the three birthday freebie sets.

• The GlamGlow skin care set comes with a cleansing mud mask and an illuminating moisturizer.
• The Bite Beauty lip kit features a mini lipstick, matte lip crayon and sample-size lip moisturizer to prevent chapped lips.
• The Bumble and Bumble hair care set comes with 1-ounce samples of invisible oil shampoo and conditioner.

Every Beauty Insiders member will get to choose one of the sets. And if you’ve already got big plans on your birthday, don’t feel like you have to rush into Sephora or risk missing out on your freebies. You can claim the GlamGlow and Bite Beauty kits in stores or online any time two weeks before or after your birthday, but the Bumble and Bumble gift is only available online.

Keep in mind that these kits are 100% free when you pick them up in stores, but if you order them online, you must make a purchase to receive them.

Want more free stuff to celebrate your big day? Here are 100 places to score birthday freebies.

Desiree Stennett is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Einstein Bros. Wants to Make a Morning Person by Bribing You With Free Food

You know the sound your stovetop makes when you’re opening up the gates of heaven with a spatula and some strips of pork belly?

I’m talking about the sizzle, pop and crack of frying bacon. You know that sound. I know you do. And I know it’s the only thing that gets you out of bed on Sundays.  

What if you didn’t need to wait until Sunday to have that spiritual awakening? Could it be the key to having that Sunday funday feel every day? Would it be the cure for your Monday blues?

Einstein Bros. Bagels thinks so. And it has come up with one of the most unique ways we’ve ever hears of to get your butt in gear –– and fill your stomach –– in the mornings for free.

How to Get Free Food From Einstein Bros.

Einstein Bros. wants everyone to be a morning person. The easiest way to do that? Have people download a ringtone of their favorite morning sounds, like bacon sizzling, eggs frying, a rooster crowing or coffee brewing, and give them a freebie in return.

I’ve seen a lot of freebies, but I’ve never seen one quite like this.

To download the MP3 of your favorite morning sound, head to Einstein Bros.’s wake-up page to make your selection. After clicking on one, it’ll prompt you to enter your email address. The MP3 will be sent to your email, along with a coupon for a free egg sandwich with any purchase.

YUM.

According to Delish, the coupon includes Einstein’s two new sandwiches: the Cheesy Wakin’ Bacon and the No Yolk.

I don’t know about you, but this would make me a morning person in no time.

Here’s to better mornings!

Kelly Anne Smith is a junior writer and engagement specialist at The Penny Hoarder. Catch her on Twitter at @keywordkelly.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Oprah Dropped the Mic on Workplace Harassment in Her Golden Globe Speech

Women in Hollywood continue to use their platforms to speak out against sexual harassment in the workplace.

Last week, we wrote about the Time’s Up movement with hundreds of women in entertainment banding together to support women from other industries who experience sexual misconduct on the job.

Oprah Winfrey’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes Sunday is another example of a powerful woman lending her voice to the fight.

“I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories,” Oprah said, accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. “But it’s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It’s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics or workplace.”

Oprah’s Golden Globes speech recognized the countless unnamed women who’ve endured abuse on the job because they “had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue.”

She said the time is up for the men who abuse their power at the mercy of those women and she’s looking forward to the new day on the horizon “when nobody ever has to say ‘Me too’ again.”

Oprah’s Golden Globes speech encouraged women to speak out against the injustices they face in their lives.

“What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have,” she said.

I hope the millions who watched, Tweeted and shared Oprah’s speech truly embrace that message.

Nicole Dow is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Live in Atlanta? Omni Hotels is Hiring Work-From-Home Reservation Agents

Week one back in the office after your holiday vacation is… rough.

Week two? Nearly impossible.

But what if you could start working from home and stop making the icy, wintery slog just to sit in a cubicle all day?

Rather than battling another arctic cyclone on your way across town, what if you could earn a paycheck from the comfort of your couch — all while snuggled up in your pajamas and wool socks?

Would you be all over that opportunity?

Yeah, we thought so.

That’s why we’re bringing you an awesome work-from-home opportunity available to anyone in the Atlanta area — and you can apply today. (A special thanks to Work at Home Mom Revolution for bringing this opportunity to our attention.)

(If you’re not in the Atlanta area, don’t worry. Just go ahead and like our Jobs page on Facebook, and we’ll keep you up to date on all the best work-from-home jobs we find.)

Reservations Sales Associate at Omni Hotels and Resorts

Right now, Omni Hotels and Resorts is looking for reservations sales associates in Atlanta to work from home.

Pay: Competitive

Schedule: Must be available to work at least one weekend day (Saturday or Sunday)

Responsibilities include:

• Taking calls to assist guests with reservations including modifications and cancellations
• Offering recommendations to maximize revenue and guest satisfaction
• Maintaining professionalism while interacting with guests
• Working in a high call-volume environment

Applicants for this position must have:

• Advanced written and verbal communications skills
• Excellent phone etiquette
• Ability to work independently to resolve customer inquiries
• Intermediate experience working with basic computer programs including Microsoft Outlook and Office
• The ability to become proficient on Omni Hotel’s reservation system
• The ability to attend on-site training
• A private workspace, preferably with a door that separates it from the rest of the home
• Prior call center experience (a plus but not required)
• A working PC with LCD monitor or a laptop
• High-speed internet access with at least 10 Mbps

(You can see the rest of the technical requirements in the original job listing here.)

Benefits include:

• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• A 401(k) program
• Paid training
• Employee discounts at Omni properties

To apply for this job, go here.

Grace Schweizer is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Tax Season Means Plenty of Seasonal Jobs. Here’s How to Snag One

It’s the start of a new year and that means the tax filing deadline will be on us before we know it.

The U.S. tax code is a mystery to me, so I’m in awe of people who not only understand it but also can help others wade through the filing process.

If you’ve got tax preparation skills, you may be able to put them to use over the next few months as a seasonal worker at a tax preparation service.

Where to Get Tax Preparer Training

You need more than good math skills to be marketable as a tax preparer. You also need some basic tax prep training.

Some tax services offer online and in-person tax preparation courses, including:

• H&R Block

• Jackson Hewitt

• Liberty Tax

You can also take classes at your local community college or on an online learning platform like Udemy.

Where to Look for Seasonal Tax Preparer Jobs

Once you’ve got tax preparer training under your belt, keep an eye out for seasonal job openings at nationwide tax prep services like H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt.

Don’t forget to also check job listings at local and regional tax preparation firms in your area.

Of course, the Internal Revenue Service also employs seasonal workers during tax season. Jobs include:

• Tax Examining Technician

• Data Transcriber

• Clerk

If you’d like to give back to your community and do some volunteer work, the IRS provides free training for people who want to help low-to-moderate-income families prepare their taxes.

How Much You’ll Make

How much you’ll make as a seasonal tax preparer depends on where you work.

H&R Block pays an average of $9 per hour plus commission, and jobs at the IRS start at $11.57 an hour. In 2016, Jackson Hewitt told us the starting pay for its seasonal customer service associates is $11 per hour.

If tax prep isn’t your cup of tea, or if you just want to learn about working as a tax preparer without committing to a training course, some tax preparation services hire seasonal customer service workers to solve technical issues and answer customer questions.

Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She loves telling readers about new job opportunities so look her up on Twitter (@lisah) if you’ve got a tip to share.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite: Follow These 5 Travel Tips for a Safe Trip

Redbox Will Give You a Free Movie or Game Rental When You Text This Code

Going out to an 8 p.m. movie costs at least $10 per person, even if you don’t buy snacks.

Watching a movie at home, snuggled up on your couch? Tonight, you can do that without paying a dime.

Redbox is offering a free one-day rental. It’s not just for movies, either — you can rent a video game instead.

It’s so easy you’ll want to drop everything and plan that perfect night in.

This Redbox Coupon Code Gets You a Free Rental

To get your free rental, text “VALPAK” to 727272. You’ll instantly receive a text response that contains a unique coupon code for a free one-day rental. You can use one code per Redbox transaction, and the coupon code is not valid on streaming movies.

Just don’t lose track of your rental disc. If you return it after 9 p.m. the day after your rental begins, Redbox will charge you a day’s rental.

Each texted Redbox coupon code will contain an expiration date. Be sure to note yours! No one wants to miss out on a free movie night.

Lisa Rowan is a senior writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Is it time to switch your Help to Buy Isa to a Lifetime Isa?

For many people, high property prices mean the dream of homeownership remains a distant prospect, but there is some help at hand for those trying to get on to the ladder.

Both the Help to Buy Isa and Lifetime Isa offer financial support to those saving to buy a property, and which account you should pick depends on your circumstances.

• How I’m saving or investing with my Lifetime Isa at ages 18 to 21

Savers using a Help to Buy Isa – which launched in December 2015 – can deposit £1,000 when they open an account plus £200 each month.

You’ll earn a 25% bonus on your balance, up to a limit of £3,000. You can use this to buy a property worth up to £250,000, or £450,000 in London, and the government bonus is paid when the property sale completes. Note, there is only a cash version of the product.

The top Help to Buy Isa, available nationwide, comes from Barclays, paying 2.53%. You can apply for this account in branch or over the phone.

Elsewhere, the Virgin Money Help to Buy Isa (Issue 4), which must be opened online, and the Buckinghamshire Building Society Help to Buy Isa (Issue 2), which can be opened by post or in branch, both pay a competitive 2.25%.

While Barclays offers the best nationally available account, some smaller building societies offer higher rates of interest to customers who live in the local area: Penrith Building Society pays 3%, Cumberland Building Society pays 2.6%, Newcastle Building Society pays 2.56% and Darlington Building Society pays 2.55%.

The Lifetime Isa joined the Isa family in April 2017, and aims to help both those saving for a house worth less than £450,000 and those saving for retirement. If you are aged between 18 to 39, you can save £4,000 a year in the Lifetime Isa, which can be a lump sum or spread through the year. The government immediately adds a 25% bonus when you save or invest, up to a limit of £33,000.

• Ask the experts: “Can I keep some money in my Help to Buy Isa once I open a Lifetime Isa?”

At present, only one provider offers a cash version of the account – the Skipton Building Society Online Cash Lifetime Isa pays 0.75% to savers.

AJ Bell, Foresters Friendly, Hargreaves Lansdown, Nutmeg and The Share Centre are the major providers offering the stocks and shares equivalent if you would prefer to invest.

isa-lifetime-htb-table-18.PNG

How to move your money

You can transfer your Help to Buy Isa into a Lifetime Isa and receive the 25% government bonus, but you must do this before 5 April 2018. Any Help to Buy savings made before 5 April 2017 will not eat into your £4,000 allowance for the 2017/18 tax year either.

You can save more in a Lifetime Isa, so it’s a better bet for most people. However, a Help to Buy Isa is the best option if you plan to buy soon, as the Lifetime Isa must be open for a year before you can use it to buy a home.

Also, if you change your mind and decide not to buy a home, the Help to Buy Isa has no penalties for withdrawing your cash. Withdrawals from the Lifetime Isa incur a 6.25% penalty, although you can withdraw cash for your retirement once you reach the age of 60.

The Help to Buy Isa is considered a version of the Cash Isa, which means in most cases you can’t pay into both types of account in the same tax year. A few providers – such as Aldermore and Nationwide – offer a split Isa, which means you can max out your full £20,000 yearly Isa allowance between the different Isa products.

• City Survivors: Lifetime Isa versus the Help to Buy Isa or a workplace pension

Featured product: Nationwide Help to Buy Isa 

If you’re able to save more than the £200 monthly Help to Buy Isa allowance, the Nationwide Help to Buy Isa is worth considering.

While this only pays 2%, it is one of a few providers that lets you keep the rest of your yearly allowance inside a separate Cash Isa – this is known as a split Isa. It can be opened online and in branch. Its top easy-access Cash Isa pays 0.75% 

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Related stories

• How I’m saving or investing with my Lifetime Isa at ages 18 to 21
• Ask the experts: “Can I keep some money in my Help to Buy Isa once I open a Lifetime Isa?”
• City Survivors: Lifetime Isa versus the Help to Buy Isa or a workplace pension

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How to Boost Conversions by Personalizing Your Website

Every business has room to improve their conversion rates.

If you’re looking for a place to start, analyzing your website is the first logical step.

While you may have done A/B testing or used some similar techniques in the past to get a surge in conversions, you can take your efforts one step further.

Look at your website through the eyes of your customer.

The key is, not everyone viewing your website has the same set of eyes.

Sure, your company has a general target market, but visitors of all ages and genders from different geographic locations will be viewing your website.

These people have different preferences.

How can you configure your site to provide the most relevant information, products, and services to each unique visitor?

You need to implement personalization methods.

If you’ve never done this before, it may sound intimidating.

While it may not be the simplest task you’ve ever completed, it’s not that difficult.

It’ll require a bit of thought and effort on your part, but the results will be worth it.

In fact, 68% of companies say personalization is a top priority.

That’s because personalized experiences can improve customer retention rates.

Furthermore, customers prefer retailers that personalize their shopping experience.

It’s no secret you’re monitoring the behavior of shoppers on your website.

Although 36% of customers don’t want to be tracked, 75% of people would still rather shop from a company that uses their information to enhance their experience.

Improving the customer experience will ultimately help you get more conversions.

I’ll show you the best ways to accomplish this.

Start by focusing on your primary target market

We’ll eventually increase the customer personalization much further than this, but you have to start with the basics.

Your website should be designed to please your best customers.

Here’s an example to illustrate my point.

Let’s say you’re a small clothing company with a brick-and-mortar store located in Rhode Island.

You have a global ecommerce store, but 90% of your online traffic and sales come from people located in New England.

Every once in a while, you’ll get a hit from Australia, southern California, or Hawaii.

That doesn’t mean you should be heavily promoting bathing suites on your website during the winter.

This product doesn’t speak to your primary customers.

You should be pushing sweaters, winter coats, and boots instead.

Some companies have a target market specific to one gender.

Take a look at Victoria’s Secret website:

All their products are for women.

That’s why their site has a pink theme and features strictly women’s apparel and accessories on the homepage.

This website wouldn’t be effective for a company that sells products for both men and women.

Once you start by designing your website with your most profitable customers and target market in mind, the rest of your personalization methods will become much easier.

Encourage visitors to create a customer profile

You want all your customers to shop while logged into their customer accounts.

That way, you can monitor all their shopping habits and find out what products they like the most.

When designing profile fields for them to fill out, you can also include a zip code field.

This can help you determine the best products to offer your customers based on their location and the time of year.

Not every ecommerce site has a high concentration of sales from a specific region.

Global ecommerce stores have to be able to customize the products on their sites based on the season of the region where the user is located.

Another thing to consider is your holiday season promotional campaigns.

Running a Fourth of July sale may speak to the American customer, but it doesn’t mean anything to the international consumers.

Those advertisements shouldn’t be shown to visitors from Spain or Germany.

But you have to give the customer a reason to create a customer profile.

Saying “Join now to get a more personalized shopping experience” isn’t the most enticing pitch.

Take a look at what Champs Sports offers their VIP members who create a profile:

All these exclusive benefits give the shopper a reason to create a profile.

The personalization they’ll receive is just an added bonus, but it will make it easier for you to get conversions.

Get customers to add more items to their shopping carts

Another way to personalize the customer shopping experience is to use information of your customers’ orders.

Someone has been browsing your site for a while.

They’ve considered a few different products but ultimately decided to pick their favorite.

This person may have had a couple of other options in mind, but for one reason or another, they just decided to add one to their cart.

Here’s a perfect opportunity for you to upsell to this customer.

This will help you get a higher average order value as well.

Let’s take a look at an example from SAXX Underwear:

They offer free shipping on orders over $50.

A customer spending $44.95 is likely to feel they should add something else to their cart to get the free shipping benefit.

Plus, as I said before, the customer probably has something in mind they wanted to add in the first place.

These subtle tricks can get people to spend more each visit.

Use popups to greet new customers

If someone isn’t signed into their user profile, it might be because they don’t have one.

Maybe it’s their first time visiting your website.

You can’t expect everyone to be familiar with your brand and website navigation.

To improve the learning curve and add an incentive for your customer to make a purchase, have an offer pop up on the screen.

Here’s a great example form Julep:

This method will give that extra encouragement for your site visitor to complete the conversion.

Even if they don’t make a purchase today, you’ve got their email address added to your subscriber list.

Now you can contact them via email and use additional personalization methods through that marketing channel, which we’ll discuss shortly.

Popups have an average conversion rate of 3.09%.

While that number may sound small, think about your daily website traffic.

For every 10,000 visitors you get, you’ll get 300 more conversions than you would have without the popups.

And that’s if you have average rates.

I’ve seen some companies with significantly higher conversion rates.

Multiply those additional conversions by your average order rate to find out how much more revenue you could be getting.

Plus, it’s not like it’s going to cost you anything extra to implement this strategy.

So it’s well worth it.

Reward customer loyalty

You want to make sure your best customers feel special.

If they are spending lots of money, you should reward them for this.

Why should everyone get the same discounts if one person spends $100 each year and the other person spends $500?

Take a look at this rewards program offered by Footlocker:

In order to receive the best benefits, customers need to spend $300 within 12 months.

Now you’ll get people to spend more money per each transaction so they can reach their reward status faster.

This will get you more money and keep your customers happy at the same time.

It’s a win-win.

That’s why tracking your customers’ unique spending habits is a personalization method I highly recommend.

Reward people for spending money, and it will encourage them to spend more.

Recommend products to website visitors based on their browsing behavior

When someone is browsing on your website, you need to figure out what they’re looking for.

This is essential for ecommerce companies that have a wide range of products.

According to Barilliance, 31% of the money generated by ecommerce sites was based on product recommendations.

Furthermore, users who click on a suggested product convert 5.5% more frequently than those viewing other products.

Earlier we saw that the majority of customers prefer to shop at retailers offering personalized shopping experience, and this data reinforces that even more.

So you need to narrow down the products offered on your site by category.

We’ll use clothing as an example.

• Tops
• Bottoms
• Shoes
• Accessories

Those would be reasonable categories to segment your products by.

The type of content viewed is the top method that websites use to personalize the user experience.

Amazon uses this technique on their website all the time:

I saw these results when I was browsing for a Wi-Fi extender on their website.

They recommend these items because other customers bought them after purchasing the specific product I was looking it.

Using this method is also a form of social proof.

The idea is that if other people performed a certain action, then I should too, right?

Well, that’s how the customer’s mind works.

Here’s another way Amazon cross-sells to their customers with recommendations:

What goes well with a Wi-Fi extender?

A wireless router makes sense.

If someone needs an extender, it’s a sign they are probably having some problems with their existing Internet connection.

So maybe they need a new router as well.

Apply this same concept to your ecommerce site.

If a customer is browsing for winter hats and gloves, you could recommend a scarf or ski mask to go with it.

Continue using personalization on other channels

Some of the tactics we discussed involved collecting user information.

There’s a good chance you’re able to get some email addresses added to your subscriber list based on these personalization techniques.

Well, now’s your chance to continue to market to these customers with personalization through other marketing campaigns—outside your website.

You can apply these same strategies to your email marketing campaigns.

Marketing experts agree that personalization improves their email marketing content.

Don’t limit yourself to only personalizing your website.

When you’re sending an email, use the recipient’s first name in the message to get their attention.

Use relevant content and promotional offers based on their shopping habits, demographics, and physical location to get higher conversions.

Conclusion

If you’re trying to improve the conversion rates on your website, focus on enhancing the customer experience.

One of the best ways to do this is by implementing personalization tactics.

Start by focusing your efforts on your primary target market.

Then, encourage your customers to create a unique user profile.

The information they provide you with when creating the profile will give you additional insight into their shopping habits.

But you need to give them a reason to join, so make sure to offer some kind of promotional discount or another incentive.

Try to get your customers to add more to their shopping carts by enticing them with something relevant to their current order.

Recommend other products based on what they are browsing for.

Create a customer loyalty program, and monitor how much money each customer spends. Reward the customers who spend the most.

All of these personalization techniques will help you increase your conversion rates, but that doesn’t mean you should limit this to your website alone.

Use personalization methods in other marketing channels such as your email campaigns.

What tactics have you implemented to improve the personalization of your website for your customers?

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How to plan a funeral and save money

With the average send-off costing £4,000, letting your loved ones know your preferences – or making your own plan – could save them upset and money. We give you the lowdown on arranging a conventional burial and look at the growing trend for more unusual ceremonies.

Arranging a loved one’s funeral is an emotional time, but it can also be a very expensive one. Figures from insurer SunLife’s Cost of Dying 2017 report show that the average funeral costs £4,078 – an increase of 5% on the previous year and more than double the cost when it started tracking them in 2004.

• What happens to your digital assets when you die?

There is plenty of variation in this figure too, with factors such as where you live and whether you choose a burial or cremation making a difference. Figures from insurer Royal London’s National Funeral Cost Index on the most and least expensive places to have a funeral show that while a burial in Kensal Green in London will set you back £9,809 due to a shortage of burial plots, a cremation in Belfast will only cost £2,943 on average.

However, while some costs are unavoidable, it is possible to give your loved one a highly personal and memorable send-off without spending a fortune.

Shop around

Part of the problem is that as it’s such an emotional time, many people just go to their local funeral directors and choose a ready-made package.

Rosie Inman-Cook, manager of The Natural Death Centre, a charity that provides help and advice on funerals, recommends shopping around. “Funeral directors can be very different, both in terms of price but also in the service they offer, so speak to a few and pick one you like and trust,” she says. “You can even arrange a funeral yourself: there is no legal requirement to have a funeral director.”

While few people do organise the entire funeral themselves, they are taking on elements of it.

“We encourage families to pay tribute to their loved one with their own skills wherever possible. This could include arranging the flowers, transporting the coffin or giving the service,” says Rosie Grant, director at Natural Endings Funeral Services in Manchester. “It’s not right for every family, and not every funeral director can accommodate it, but it can make it a very personal funeral.”

• Over-50s pressured to buy unregulated funeral plans

As an example, a couple of the families she has worked with have built the coffin themselves.

“In one case, the deceased was a second-hand wood dealer, and his son and daughter wanted to make it for him. It was very moving to see them in his workshop, using his tools,” she says.

Even if your woodworking skills aren’t up to it, you don’t need to have a coffin and can choose a shroud instead. There are plenty of cheap deals online, but Ms Inman-Cook recommends using one of the manufacturers listed on the charity’s website (Naturaldeath.org.uk).

“You can get a shroud or cardboard coffin for between £150 and £200,” she says. “For a woven coffin, which some funeral directors charge £1,000 for, you could pay £600 or less.”

cost-of-dying-graph.PNG

Change the venue

Many other elements of a funeral can also be adapted to cut costs and make it more personal. For instance, while most funerals take place in a crematorium or place of worship, you don’t have to be tied to tradition.

“You can hold a funeral anywhere you like as long you don’t offend common decency,” says Charles Cowling, author of The Good Funeral Guide. “It can make the service much more relaxed and you could even use your own home or garden if you like.”

For example, Natural Endings’ Ms Grant arranged a funeral in the home of a lady who had taught piano. “The coffin was placed next to her grand piano and her family, who were all musical, brought their instruments and played during the ceremony. It was beautiful.”

Other venues that could be considered include museums, wedding barns, pubs and football grounds. And even if you do decide to stick to the crematorium, Adrian Pink, owner of Town and Country Funeral Directors in Surrey, suggests checking the fee.

“Some charge less for an early morning service,” he says. “This could save you £100 or so.”

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There is no need to go for the traditional black hearse and limos either. As well as hiring a more unusual hearse such as a motorcycle and sidecar hearse or a camper van, it’s also possible to use your own vehicle.

“I’ve spoken to families who’ve been told they have to use a hearse or that they need special insurance for transporting a corpse. Neither is true,” says Ms Inman-Cook. “If your vehicle is large enough and you’re happy to do it, use your own car.”

Make it personal

It can even help to make the funeral more personal. For example, Ms Grant arranged a funeral for a young woman who had run a cleaning business, with the coffin transported in her pink work van, and has also seen an old ambulance used and a flat-bed truck carry the coffin at a roadie’s funeral.

As well as the service itself, you may also want to consider some of the associated charges, in particular those for looking after the deceased before the funeral.

“You can keep the body at home if you like, but you do need to be realistic about this,” says Ms Inman-Cook. “You’ll need ice packs, and I wouldn’t recommend doing this for anything longer than six days.”

If you do want to do this, it is worth having support from a funeral director.

Ms Grant explains: “I kept my mum at home when she died for the three days before the burial and my funeral director came in each day to help. Now that I’m a funeral director it’s something I will do for families too.”

Although very few people might consider looking after the deceased at home, many will find themselves being asked whether they would like to have them embalmed. With overtones of the Egyptian pharaohs and often referred to as a hygienic treatment, this is an invasive chemical procedure that stops the body’s natural processes.

“It isn’t something I’d want for myself or my family and it’s not really necessary now we have refrigeration,” says Ms Grant. “However, it can be useful if someone has died suddenly and the family can’t get there for a while.”

Go direct

Another low-cost option is a direct disposal. With these, the body is cremated or, less commonly, buried without a funeral ceremony. “It puts the farewell back into the hands of the family,” says Mr Cowling. “They can then arrange their own memorial service or party as they wish.”

Around 5% of people, including celebrities such as David Bowie and John Lennon, have a direct burial or cremation and, because it doesn’t have all the trappings of a funeral service, it can be much cheaper.

As an example, Town and Country Funeral Directors charges £1,550 for a direct, or no-fuss, cremation. Some providers quote fees of less than £1,000, but, check the details as these can be headline rates without disbursements such as the crematorium and doctor’s fee, which add a further £600 or more to the cost.

Many elements are exactly the same as a more traditional funeral. “We’d collect and look after the person, sort all the necessary paperwork and visit the family to discuss arrangements,” explains Mr Pink. “On the day, we’d take the person, in a simple wooden coffin, to the crematorium where they would be cremated. The ashes can be returned to the family the following day.”

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He adds that, although no one attends the funeral, he always notifies the family when it’s taking place. “Some people like to mark the occasion,” he adds. “The family might have a gathering, and one lady told me she was going for a ride on her horse to remember them.”

It’s not for everyone, though. Ms Grant says that seeing the coffin in a funeral service can be very beneficial to the grieving process. There is also no provision for viewing the body with direct disposal services. “Some people do change their mind about whether or not to see the deceased,” she adds. “This can be difficult if you’ve opted for a direct cremation.”

Donate your body

For an even cheaper farewell, it’s also possible to donate your body to science, where it could be used for research purposes or to help train healthcare professionals. If you choose this, you’ll need to complete the necessary paperwork with a licensed medical school, tell your family and GP, and keep a copy of the consent form with your will.

Eighty-year-old Garry Crowley from Somerset plans to do just this. “I’d like to be part of some research if it helps others in some way, but I also hate the way some funeral directors play on people’s emotions to up the costs,” he explains.

Donating your body can potentially sidestep all funeral expenses, although depending on when and where you die, your family may have to pay for a funeral director to take your body initially.

There is also the chance that the body won’t be accepted.

Ms Inman-Cook explains: “Have a plan B as there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to take the donation. If you die during a holiday period or you have certain medical conditions, including transmissible disease, pressure sores and cancer, it won’t always be possible.”

But whether you want to have a traditional service, three days of partying or you would prefer to donate your body to a medical school, there are plenty of ways to have a respectful and dignified funeral that won’t break the bank.

“It was a very personal and special day”

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When Jonnie Crouch died in 2015 at the age of 57, his friends wanted to give him the send-off he deserved.

“He’d struggled with cancer for seven years, so it was really important for me and Jonnie’s best friend, Dominic, to remember what he was like,” says his friend Gaynor Edwards.

“We wanted to celebrate his life and have the good memories.”

Although he’d known it was coming, he’d not really talked about his funeral. “We had a conversation not long before he died where he said he’d like everyone to be given wild flower seeds but other than that it was up to me,” says Gaynor.

So, with some help from his friends, she put together a day of celebrations of Jonnie’s life. “We invited everyone to send in photos and memories and used this in the service and to create a slide show,” says Gaynor. “Some of his oldest friends from school carried the coffin and the crematorium staff even bent the rules to let me bring our dog. It was a very personal and special day.”

Transport for guests was also arranged, with Gaynor hiring a Routemaster bus, signed ‘Crouch End’ to take people from Tunbridge Wells station to the crematorium and on to the wake. “It was brilliant as it gave everyone a chance to chat about Jonnie. There wasn’t a dry eye in the service but we all came off the bus laughing,” says Gaynor. “We wanted to give him a good send-off and he got it.

“Don’t feel you have to stick with tradition”

Neil McCain, a funeral celebrant in Dorset, says: “Funerals are changing. Although it can still be appropriate to have a very traditional, religious ceremony, more and more people are seeing a funeral as a way to celebrate someone’s life. This change is reflected in the funeral services I take, which range from those with hymns and prayers in a crematorium through to celebrations in village halls and on boats.

“One lady even took her husband’s order of service on a road trip, visiting friends and family around the world so they could remember and celebrate his life. Whatever they did, each has been personal and an opportunity to share memories of the deceased, with everything from opera singers, naughty poems and even some dad dancing and swearing.

Don’t feel you have to stick with tradition or be led by the funeral director: what is important is that the day is what you want. A good funeral director and celebrant will support you and help you make the funeral a special way to remember your loved one.”

Funeral plans

Funeral plans ensure that, whatever happens, there is money available to meet at least some of the costs. Many funeral directors offer a suite of pre-paid plans, allowing you to select the type of funeral and coffin you want. These are available at today’s prices, either paid for in instalments or a one-off payment and, no matter when you die, your chosen funeral will be covered.

Some insurers also offer pre-paid plans. For example, SunLife works with funeral provider Golden Charter to offer three plans – standard, at £3,625, select, at £3,995 and premier, at £4,540. “Once you’ve paid this, your family will just need to contact your allocated funeral director and they will do the rest,” says Graham Jones, commercial director at SunLife.

But before taking out a plan, Charles Cowling, author of The Good Funeral Guide, has the following advice. “The trouble with many plans is you’re tied to a particular funeral director or chain. This is fi ne if everyone is happy with the arrangements,” he says. “If there is any doubt, it might be better to leave a pot of money so family and friends can give you the send-off they want.

USEFUL CONTACTS

 Funeral Choice, Yourfuneral choice.com, tel: 01983 754387

The Natural Death Centre, Naturaldeath. org.uk, tel: 01962 712690

The Good Funeral Guide, Goodfuneralguide. co.uk

Human Tissue Authority, Hta.gov.uk, tel: 020 7269 1900

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