This Company Finally Figured out the Secret to Cheaper Car Insurance

Living in California, you know driving in the Golden State is rather like the reality shows they shoot out there: unpredictable and a bit over-dramatic. OK, maybe more than just a bit.

Difficult driving conditions mean solid car insurance is important. But you don’t want to overpay for that coverage. How do you find the right mix? You know, get A-list celebrity coverage at B-list price?

We found a company that can help you do that. How? It just does things smarter so you don’t have to pay for stuff you don’t need.

Don’t Pay for Corner Office Space

The problem with big, outdated insurance companies is that along with their big names comes a lot of big expenses.

Just who pays for clunky PCs and unnecessary office space, anyway? You guessed it: the people who buy their policies.

What you want is to pay for coverage you need in case you have an actual claim. That’s what Clearcover does. The company avoids wasteful spending on its end so you can pay less for your coverage. Simple, right?

Clearcover works through a mobile app, so you can access your account quickly at any time and get paid fast when you need it. Plus, it does a lot of cool things you won’t find at other auto insurance companies, including:

• The Quick View ID Card lets you keep your insurance ID right on your phone, even when you don’t have cell service — you know, for when you have a fender bender in the forest.
• Alternate Transportation Coverage gives you cash in-hand so you can decide for yourself how you want to get around if your car is being repaired. If you want to save a few bucks by riding the bus, that’s your call.
• Digital Claims: You can file a claim right in the Clearcover app — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Get Your Coverage for a Lower Price

You know how new tech devices get cheaper after a while? As technology develops, we learn how to use it more efficiently and keep costs down.

That’s what Clearcover does for insurance by using today’s technology and weeding out excessive advertising, celebrity endorsements and clunky equipment. You’re not paying for corner offices, just the coverage you actually need.

If you’re braving the roads in California and wondering if you could be saving money by switching, it’s time to find out. Sign up today, and you can save 20% to 40% on your premiums simply by not paying for the stuff you don’t need.

Tyler Omoth is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder who loves soaking up the sun and finding creative ways to help others. Catch him on Twitter at @Tyomoth.

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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The Best Airbnb Tips From 4 Expert Hosts (One Person Made $2K in 15 Days)

How to Ask Your Employer for Help Dealing With Depression and Anxiety

Twelve Low Cost Strategies for Getting Out of a Funk

We’ve all been there at some time or another.

You feel somewhat disengaged from a lot of the things in your life. Work, even if you enjoy it, seems like a burden. Maintaining relationships seems like a burden. You fall back to the most basic of your life routines. You feel tired and perhaps not all that optimistic about things. Depressed isn’t the right word for it – maybe melancholic is closer to the truth, or mild seasonal affective disorder. You’re just in a funk. You know you’ll probably get out of it in the future but for now you feel like you’re just going through the paces.

I feel this way in the winter due to mild seasonal affective disorder. I also tend to feel this way during the month or so following a period of extreme stress – I usually pull through the stress, but find myself in a funk if I don’t have a period of true downtime to refresh myself. Honestly, to an extent, I feel that way as I write this.

There are a number of big, expensive ways to break out of a funk. A big, low-intensity vacation is a very common one. I have a friend who breaks out of a funk by going to a ten day meditation retreat out in the woods somewhere, led by monks and costing a pretty penny. Sometimes people respond to short-term funks by making major life changes, like switching jobs or careers, that ends up causing a lot of long term financial damage. Lots of people resort to retail therapy to break out of a funk.

My toolkit is a little bit different. Here are twelve things I do that cost virtually nothing that help me to break out of a funk.

I exercise. I simply do anything that gets my heart rate up, gets me sweating a little, and gets me out of breath. I usually do sets of bodyweight exercises – pushups, planks, squats, and so on. I also often do repeated kicks in the air, sometimes holding them when my leg is extended. The goal is to get to a point where I’m panting and try to stay there while also exercising muscle groups enough that I’ll feel a bit of soreness the next day.

You don’t have to do anything that intense, but anything you can do to get your body moving or get yourself breathing a little heavy is good. Not only is it good for your health, it’s also good for improving your sense of well being. I find that exercise usually provides a pretty big temporary lift, and doing some form of exercise every day tends to bolster those temporary lifts.

I go on long walks. This is a mix of low intensity exercise and time spent outside in the sun. I love to hike when the weather supports it (but I’m not a huge fan of long cold weather hikes), but when I don’t have the time for a hike, I just go on walks around my neighborhood.

Simply getting outside in the fresh air with sunlight on my face and arms is a mood lifter. I tend to find that going on two or three short walks (around the block) and one long walk (a mile or two) is a good fit for me.

I stretch. This might seem strange, but I swear that it works. I spend some time each day stretching, and by that, I basically mean a mild yoga routine focused on stretching and flexibility. This is pretty close to the routine I do most mornings, and I do even more than that when I feel like I’m in a funk.

This is a very low impact way to make my body feel less lethargic when I’m feeling down and out. It doesn’t require as much from me as doing a lot of exercise, yet still leaves me feeling better for a while afterwards. I find that doing some stretching daily for a few days tends to lead to enough motivation to get some exercise, and that tends to be a big part of my road toward getting out of a funk.

I eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I find that when I get into a funk, I tend to rely on carb-heavy foods like pasta and breads more than I should and I eat less straight fruits and vegetables. If I make a conscious decision to reverse that trend, it usually helps.

For me, one way to do that is to eat a piece of fruit whenever I eat anything. I have an apple or an orange or a banana to accompany any meal or as a snack. I also make an effort to have some kind of vegetable at each meal and make sure that it’s at least half of the volume of the food I eat, measured roughly by making sure I have more vegetables on my plate than anything else. This practice tends to help tremendously with energy level and feeling less lethargic.

I drink a lot of water. Another thing I notice is that when I’m in a funk, I don’t drink as much liquids, period, and when I do, it’s in the form of coffee or tea. Making sure that I drink a lot of water helps a lot with that, too.

For me, the best way to do this is to make water consumption easy by keeping a filled water bottle with me pretty much everywhere I go. I’ll fill it first thing in the morning and then fill it again when it’s low.

I take a few specific supplements – vitamin B12, vitamin D, and iron. Those supplements tend to address potential deficiencies due to two things in my life: eating an almost entirely plant-based diet and not going out in the sun very much during upper Midwestern winters. Taking them tends to help alleviate the feeling of being in a funk, whether it’s a placebo effect or not.

As always, check with your doctor before taking a dietary supplement of any kind. My doctor actually suggested these due to my diet and due to a long history of seasonal affective disorder.

I write in my journal. This is a strategy I’ve mentioned a lot in recent months. Journal writing has been a lifelong habit for me, but I’ve found that when I use it to really dig into what I’m thinking about and what’s bothering me (more than just listing life events), it’s a profoundly helpful thing.

My strategy is the “morning pages” technique I learned from Julia Cameron. Sometime in the early morning each day, I pop open my journal with the aim of filling at least three pages, and I just dump whatever’s on my mind. What’s drawing my thoughts? I find that almost every sentence I write helps me clarify a thought, and that tends to almost always lead right into another one, which is another sentence, and before I know it I’ve filled at least three pages. When I stop – and sometimes I have to make myself stop – I feel like I’ve unclogged my head and that leaves me feeling much more prepared to tackle the day and tackle my life in general.

I spend time with friends and in social situations. When I’m feeling in a funk, I tend to retreat into myself and spend time at home rather than out and about. Consciously choosing to not do that and instead make myself engage socially makes a giant difference.

I’ll make myself go to a meetup or a community board game night. I’ll touch base with my friends and see if they’re up for doing anything social. I do this even if I don’t feel like it, and I strongly urge myself to go even if I don’t really want to. Why? I feel tremendously better when I get there and get involved in something with other people.

I make my bed, shower, brush my teeth, and put on clothes that make me feel good. Another thing that I often do when I’m in a funk is stay in my pajamas all day. It’s easy and feels comfortable, but it tends to add to a state of feeling in a funk.

If I start off my day – or at least do this in the morning – by taking a shower, getting dressed in something that feels good (like I’m engaging with the world), and making my bed, I tend to feel like today’s going to be a pretty good day and that carries on throughout the day.

I meditate. I mention meditation and prayer often, but it’s because it’s probably been the most profound thing I’ve discovered in terms of improving my life over the last few years and it’s free. The trick is that you really have to do it every day for a long while to start seeing the effects of it, because at first it doesn’t really seem to do a whole lot.

Just spend five minutes a day focusing on your breathing or on a single phrase or short prayer. If your mind wanders from it, bring it back to that focus point. Just do it every day. What’s the benefit? For me, it becomes easier to focus. It becomes easier to have a grip on my emotions. I sleep better. I work better. Everything just gets a little bit better. It happens subtly over time so that you don’t even notice it.

I block off a few days in the near future for a “stay-cation.” For me, knowing that I have two or three days coming up to dig deep into a hobby or take care of a project that’s been bothering me, I feel way more motivated to step up to the plate with all kinds of things in my life. I know that I have to get work completed by then and I usually want to get a bunch of other personal tasks done by then, too, and I feel motivated to do them.

This is more of a “time motivator” or “time reward,” really. By setting up this reward, I strongly encourage myself to be more engaged today and in the next few days, and by being so engaged, I often lift myself out of a sense of lethargy.

I go to bed early enough so that I can wake up naturally without an alarm clock. One of the most surefire ways for me to feel burnt out is to get up excessively early every day to take care of tasks. I can do it for a while, but then I need at least a day or two where I can sleep in without an alarm and get up when I feel like getting up.

Waking naturally rather than due to the sound of an alarm clock means that your natural sleep cycles finish when they should rather than being disrupted. This helps with wakefulness and energy level throughout the day and can help quite a bit with turning back a tide of low energy.

These tools are incredibly helpful for me personally when turning back a period of melancholy or low energy in my life. They are not a solution for clinical depression, vitamin deficiencies, or other deeper problems. If you feel a strong sense of low energy and low mood that isn’t alleviated by these techniques, please see a medical professional or at least talk to someone in your life about your struggles. People do care and will listen.

Good luck!

The post Twelve Low Cost Strategies for Getting Out of a Funk appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Here’s Where This Financial Planner Keeps Her Money (Hint: Not Big Banks)

Finding Order and Meaning in Your Life Through Bullet Journaling

Five years ago I left my full-time job to enter the freelance writing world. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to best organize and manage my days so they were productive and meaningful. At some point during that first year, I discovered the Bullet Journal methodology, and while I’ve picked it up and put it down a couple times since then, I recommitted to the analog process earlier this year, around the same time I chose to intentionally disconnect more from my phone.

If you’re looking for a new way to approach 2019, the pen-and-paper-notebook-based system is best visualized through this five-minute tutorial video found on the Bullet Journal website. But if you’re curious to know even more about how to make it work for you, founder Ryder Carroll published his first book, The Bullet Journal Method — now a New York Times bestseller — this fall.

I spoke with Carroll earlier this month and asked him, with all the available apps and technology out there, why develop an analog system?

“For me, it’s not about digital versus analog,” he said. “It’s about figuring out what the best tools are for the job. I found that over the years putting everything into apps was not in fact making me more productive and I realized that it was a lot easier for me to clarify my thoughts and to get organized on paper first.”

Once his thoughts are organized on paper, he may find a digital home for that information — for instance, scheduling a needed phone call into a calendar app.

“It was the process of disengaging from technology that allowed me to re-engage with technology a lot more effectively. For me, I think one thing technology is really wonderful at is helping us connect with the world around us. Technology provides us with unlimited ways for us to be more productive, but also it’s a double-edged sword because it’s also an unlimited amount of distractions.”

• Related: Digital Detox: How and Why to Recharge Your Mind With an Unplugged Weekend

Our time and energy are incredibly limited, Carroll said. If we’re not careful, we can waste so much more time than we should being distracted – but journaling can help disengage your auto-pilot.

“It activates us differently and we interact with it in a way that requires us to slow down,” he said. “I think that a lot of times we mistake convenience for efficiency. Yeah, it’s much faster to type, but maybe it would behoove us to slow down, especially when it comes to figuring out what it is that we will be investing our time and energy into.”

Part of that slowing down is choosing a writing utensil and notebook that works for you. BuJo, as it’s often called, doesn’t require fancy or expensive products. Once you’ve selected your tools, then you’ll learn to apply a system of daily, monthly, and future logging to a practice of reflection, goal-setting, and meaning-making.

And no matter how many creative and artistic Bullet Journal page examples you find online, Carroll said that the only thing that matters is the content, not the presentation. When Bullet Journal started becoming popular, he explained, a lot of the people who first adopted it were creatively gifted and their form of expression was sharing it online. He was clear to state that there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. They’re proud of their work, and many times they’re coming up with creative visual solutions to organization.

Over time, though, he said, it started to feel like it was becoming a competition. “The problem with that to me is that it takes the emphasis off of what it should be, which is about self-learning and figuring out what you need to become more productive.”

Start with the basics, which you can find on the website, or in his book, and if you want to become more creative from there, go for it. “If you see my own,” he said, “it’s filled with illegible chicken scratch and it’s black and white. It’s always about how effective of a tool it becomes, right? You can have a beautiful pretty hammer, but at the end of the day, if it doesn’t help you sink the nails, it doesn’t matter.”

And it can be a really effective tool, beyond basic logging of to-do list items. Custom lists, which Carroll calls “Collections,” can be used to track everything from what books you’ve read in a year, to what kind of vacation you want to take next (and exactly how you’re going to budget for it), to various types of financial management, such as:

• Creating a list of things you want to purchase and/or a list of things you already own. “Anytime you feel like you need to buy something that is non-essential, which is 99 percent of the things that we buy, write it down in the list and don’t buy it until the end of the month. You can very quickly stem your impulse-purchasing thing, right? … A big part of Bullet Journaling is to stop reacting to your thoughts and start responding. You basically just get into a habit of spending less money.”
• Tracking your savings toward a specific goal. “Maybe you want to take a vacation … you can create a tracker that allows you to continuously save and then you can enjoy the act of actually updating that tracker. It’s like, ‘OK, I put another 25 bucks away for my trip to Montana.’ You have a visual kinesthetic way of engaging with your goals as opposed to seeing some read-out on an app, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but being able to color in that bar or check that box can be very motivating and help solidify your motivation.”
• Tracking your expenditures. “There’s just unlimited ways to track your finances. Maybe you’re just tracking your expenditures every month. By writing them down, you are very aware of how you’re spending your money — and another thing is, chances are, you don’t want to be spending as much money because then you have to write it down.”

“Every to-do item,” Carroll said, “is an experience waiting to be born. So if you see it in that context, the to-do list all of sudden becomes like a time machine. It allows you to peek at the future that you’re looking to build. If that’s a future that you don’t want, then chances are you should probably address that in the now. If that is a future you do want, then you can be a lot more intentional about the steps that you’re taking toward those futures.”

When we start looking at what we really want and what we really need on an ongoing basis, he added, “it becomes a lot more focused and relevant so you can actually pipe your resources into something that is much more meaningful.”

More by Kirsten Akens: 

• Daniel Pink on the Science of Good Timing
• Worth It: Seven Frugal Bloggers Reveal What They’re Willing to Splurge On
• Beyond Capsule Closeting: How and Why to Try a Style Challenge

The post Finding Order and Meaning in Your Life Through Bullet Journaling appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2QONir8

How to Break into the WAH Scene this Year and CRUSH IT!

Do you ever sit at your desk and fantasize about working from home in your PJs? Well, fantasize no longer! From mamas to corporate ladies, stellar solopreneurs, and every possible scenario in between, working from home is no longer for dreamers. With flexible hours, zero commute time, and the plethora of career opportunities, it’s no […]

The post How to Break into the WAH Scene this Year and CRUSH IT! appeared first on The Work at Home Woman.

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Thoughts on Purpose and Retirement, Early or Otherwise

Vicki Robin, one of the authors of the truly great personal finance book Your Money or Your Life, wrote an article for Marketwatch entitled Suze Orman missed the point of retirement, and that’s why she went back to work. The article discusses the decision of financial guru Suze Orman to return to work after retiring three years ago, digging into her reasons for doing so and coming up with some interesting conclusions about retirement and financial independence.

Let’s dig into some key quotes from the article to break it down bit by bit and then I’ll summarize my thoughts on the article.

Suze Orman did a smackdown of the FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) movement on Paula Pant’s podcast. She said she “hates it, hates it, hates it.” […]

She said to Paula: “I’m telling you, I just did it for three years on my private island. I retired at 65. I shut down the Suze Orman show. I sold five homes. I got rid of five cars. I stopped going on QVC. I stopped writing for Oprah’s magazine. I stopped giving talks. I stopped doing everything, and I had a great time for three years. I learned how to fish. I learned how to win tournaments. I learned how to be the captain on my boat. and all of a sudden it was like, “Oh, there’s still stuff for me to do.” Now. I was in a field that everybody welcomed me back, when I came back. They were excited to see me in the halls of NBC and MSNBC, and everywhere that I went this past week.”

This is an important anecdote. Suze doesn’t like early retirement, but from reading that story, it certainly sounds like retirement didn’t mesh with her. She seemed to be much more fulfilled by going back to her previous work, with the relationships and the challenges of her career, than what she was doing in her retired life.

Let’s be clear: “retirement” doesn’t have to mean filling your life with pure leisure. In fact, I believe that for most people, having a “retirement” that’s nothing but leisure is a mistake. People generally thrive when they feel as though they have a purpose and while leisure is a wonderful thing, it often doesn’t scratch that “purpose” itch. A life of continuous leisure can eventually feel purposeless.

Robin touches on this in the next paragraph:

I think there is retiring forward and retiring backward. Suze did what many early retirees do. She left her day job. She got rid of excess not needed in a post-job life. For most, it’s getting rid of the car to impress clients or five suits for a weekly rotation at the office. For Suze, it was five cars and five homes.

Indeed, the simple life is one of the lures of early retirement. This can mean time in nature, reading, meditation and family life. For many who achieve financial independence (FI), compensatory spending — the shopping you do to reward yourself for a tough week at work — disappears. For Suze it was quitting the QVC habit.

FIers might travel to exotic places. For some it’s backpacking. For Suze it was living on her private island.

And people tend to learn new skills. For most it’s a language or an instrument or home cooking. For Suze it was fishing and tournaments and being a captain of a boat.

And then, a couple of years in more or less, the identity confrontation lands with a thud. Who am I now that I am not my job? How do I explain myself to others? How can I gain the respect and voice I had with my old job? I was somebody. Now I’m nobody.

Almost all of us want to feel as though our life has some sort of purpose. We are fulfilled by having something meaningful to do that gives us a sense of having a place in the world. Many people find it in their careers, but some find it elsewhere.

Often, it is that very step of walking away from a career that can take away that sense of purpose. Sure, a person might have a long list of leisure projects that they want to take on, but those leisure tasks often lose that sense of driving purpose that led them through their careers and through the other major accomplishments of their life.

Retirement, whether early or not, is a mistake if you’re not using it to fulfill some kind of purpose. It’s probably going to be a different purpose than the one you found in your career.

Robin touches on this later in the article:

Retiring forward is using this crisis of identity to grow spiritually or take on some of the bigger issues in the world through volunteering, study, serving on boards, entrepreneurship, training or social innovations. Or they attend to the relationships they neglected as they hurried to their million or two.

Not everyone does this. Many retire backward, returning to their old professions after they’ve filled up on travel or hobbies, perhaps on their own terms, because that’s where they felt competent, needed and, truth be told, important. Many do a bit of both and feel their way along to who they will be and how they might spend their time in this new world of freedom, choices and sovereignty.

In Robin’s terminology, “retiring forward” means finding a new purpose in something new once you’re retired and have walked away from your old career. “Retiring backward” means that you retire without that purpose, indulge in leisure, and wind up longing for the purpose you walked away from or, worse, simply feel lost in retirement. Many often try to return to the career they retired from.

Money alone is not an answer to this conundrum. You can have a giant wad of cash in retirement but it doesn’t matter how much cash you have if you don’t have a purpose in living.

Robin goes on (and I’m going to bold a key sentence):

From Suze’s account, it sounds like she retired backward into her old role. OK. But what did she learn in those hiatus years that she can share with her audience? It seems from other comments she learned that even $10 million in a retirement account is not enough. That stuff happens and money is the answer. I hope for all our sakes that she learned more than that and will share it.

The question for early retirees is: “To what am I dedicating my freedom?” It’s really not about how many millions you have — Suze’s assertion. Nor how much play you can do before you get bored and go back to your old job.

To what am I dedicating my freedom? That is an amazing question, and it’s one that really underlies the financial decisions Sarah and I are making.

I do not want to walk away from the work I’m doing now – writing for The Simple Dollar and other such tasks – to simply engage in leisure. I am very sure I would get tired of that rather quickly (though I’d certainly have fun for a while) and eventually I’d want to go back to it or to something similar.

Rather, if I had absolute financial freedom, I’d move onto another purpose in life. I have a few ideas of what that would be and at least two things that I would strongly try to see how well they clicked with me (namely, managing a local charity and writing novels). I’d want to approach those things with goals, with responsibility, and with seriousness and routine, and I would hope that they fill my life with the purpose I feel in writing for The Simple Dollar. I’m fairly confident that at least one of those two things would click and, if the first one I tried didn’t, I’d try the other and I have a few other ideas beyond that.

Robin writes on:

In “Your Money or Your Life,” we promised FI as a reward for systematically examining your relationship with money. I think this is what most people attracted to FIRE really want. Independence of thought. Of how they use their time. Of options. Of choices. Of dedicating their attention to something less soul-searing than cubicle life or the endless boring meetings of middle management. Retirement and freedom are two different animals. Doing “nothing” and doing your passion full-time are not even the same species.

Right now, I feel as though those two things I mentioned above – writing a number of novels and being involved in a local charity – are unfulfilled purposes in my life. They are things that I feel drawn to do, yet I know that I cannot take them on in the current situation in my life. I need a state of financial independence so I can take on those challenges without the need of working to earn an income.

The key thing is that I have a purpose in life. I have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I have a few strong purposes right now, but if those purposes fade or end, I don’t want to use the time I have in an aimless fashion. I have other things I want to do with my life, things to approach with seriousness and commitment and purpose.

Robin ties it up well:

People don’t have to follow my path of service, spirituality and social innovation. There are so many ways to use your time for happiness, meaning, purpose and contribution. At the end of the day, we all want to have a well-lived life. Five houses and five cars and a private island — without a higher purpose — mean nothing.

This article left me thinking quite a bit over the last few days and it brought me to a few conclusions worth sharing.

It’s Hard to Get Excited About a Retirement Without Purpose

If you view retirement as nothing more than leisure time and eventually a health decline, it’s often pretty hard to get excited about it. The reason is obvious: there’s no real purpose underneath it, not like the purpose many people feel in their life right now.

Right now, I have a lot of purpose in my life. I’m a parent raising kids. I’m a writer with a pretty big audience that I feel as though I reach in meaningful ways that help their lives. I’m involved with some local charitable work, though not as deeply as I’d like. I’m a husband who works to keep a strong marriage.

If those purposes fade or go away, my life will feel less purposeful unless I replace them with something. From this vantage point, a retirement with nothing but leisure in it sounds pretty … empty to me. It would be fun for a while as I unwind from the worries of my current life, but over time that would fade and I’d just be left with a purposeless life.

I can see that. I think most people see that, too. They don’t desire a life without purpose and that’s what they see when they think about retirement. They see a life with purpose now and a life without purpose then and they can’t justify saving for that purposeless life. It feels empty… and, honestly, it is empty.

I did start contributing to a 403(b) at a very young age, but I did so because of advice from mentors, not because it seemed exciting or purposeful to me. It turned out to be a great move, but at the time, it wasn’t meaningful at all and I probably would not have done so without guidance. (Now, of course, I’m so glad I saved back then.)

Now? I’m thrilled to save because I see purpose in the next stage of my life, when I have enough money in investments and in Social Security to effectively replace my income. I have things I’m drawn to do at that point, things that just aren’t feasible for me right now.

Finding a Purpose Can Be Extremely Helpful as a Motivator for Financial Recovery and Financial Independence

I’d go so far as to argue that one of the key reasons that people get into financial trouble is that they don’t see any affirming purpose in financial success. They don’t see how it leads to anything in life that has a worthwhile purpose, or at least not anything that compares to the purpose they find in their daily lives right now, so there’s little compulsion to save or to financially improve themselves outside of a general sense of that’s what a person is “supposed” to do and an understanding that they may have to someday deal with physical and/or mental decline. Those aren’t exactly exciting reasons.

Often, financial turnarounds are borne out of discovering some sort of life purpose. For me, it was having a child. For others, it comes from finding a soul mate or from discovering what they want to do with their lives or something they deeply hope to do with their lives when things come together. For still others, it comes from discovering a cause that speaks to their heart in a deep way.

The discovery of that purpose often awakens a strong desire to shape one’s life in a way that allows for the fulfillment of that purpose. For many, that comes with a strong push for financial responsibility, as financial stability is often a big part of living out this newly discovered purpose.

Find Your Purpose

I’m not suggesting that a person should get married or have a child in order to try to discover a purpose that will guide them to financial success or motivation to save for retirement or early retirement or some degree of financial independence. Rather, I recommend spending time trying to discover that kind of driving purpose.

You may find that it already exists to an extent in your professional life, in which case you may want to think ahead about what your ideal professional situation would be and what you could do now to get yourself financially prepared for it. For example, perhaps you’re a teacher and your dream is to teach at-risk students but you make substantially more teaching at a cushy school. If you were to, say, get your financial house well in order over the next several years, you could have a cushion in place that would make it financially feasible to make that kind of switch.

You may find that it exists in another profession or in a charitable cause, in which case you may need to have substantial savings in place to make that switch. Set this as a central life ambition.

Whatever that future purpose might be, consider that you want to put yourself in a position where you have the financial foundation under you to take on that passion without sacrificing your life and that you have the time to adequately tackle it. How do you get from there to here?

That sense of purpose can often be enough to drive people to make better financial decisions for themselves and their future. It certainly has for me. For me, it started with a new purpose – being a good parent – and, over the years, grew with the realization of other things I wanted to achieve in life. That provides a lot of drive to keep on a strong financial path.

So, how do you find your purpose?

My recommendation is this: try new things, lots of them. Give some serious time and thought to everything you’ve ever been interested in or wanted to achieve in your life and dabble in them with seriousness. Volunteer for a charity and take on some real responsibility. Take some classes in an area of interest, or at least read some challenging books in that area. Work on a skill with intensity and regularity. Connect with people as you’re doing this.

What you’ll find is that many of those things are fun and make for good leisure activities for you, but one or two will just click in a deep and purposeful way. You find yourself easily flipping into a flow state while doing them and you genuinely feel good about the results that you’re producing or what you’re learning and will be able to apply soon.

The things that stick around in my life are ones where I lose all track of time doing them because I’m so engaged mentally and physically in that thing. I tend to believe that such a state is the optimum human experience and is a sign that you’re either acting out your purpose in life or very close to it. They make your heart sing out in a way that little else does. I tend to find that such states produce amazing results, too.

Find those things. It will take time, but when you do, you’ll know it. It might be working for a cause. It might be a particular kind of work. It might be something else entirely. When you find it, recognize that if you make smart financial moves, you can do this on your own terms for as much of your life as you wish, and it can become an incredible financial motivator.

Good luck!

The post Thoughts on Purpose and Retirement, Early or Otherwise appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2Q1jfqU

10 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your YouTube Content in 2019

Traditional marketing is slowly becoming obsolete. Brands need to prioritize digital marketing strategies to stay relevant and successful in 2019. To approach this properly, you’ll need to start producing more video content.

When it comes to video, YouTube is king. The platform has more than 1.9 billion monthly active users, and 180 million hours of video content is consumed there every day.

Furthermore, 48% of people named YouTube as their favorite online video provider.

It’s ranked first over Netflix, Facebook, and Hulu, which got 29%, 10%, and 7% of votes, respectively. YouTube isn’t just the favorite; it’s more popular than the other three networks combined.

If you think that’s impressive, wait until you hear this: YouTube is the number two ranked website in the world, second only to Google, according to Alexa rankings.

The reason why YouTube is great for marketers is because its content is easy to repurpose across multiple platforms. Once you add a video to your YouTube channel, it’s easy to share it on other social media sites, send it to your email subscribers, and add it to your website.

I’ve identified the top ten tips to enhance your YouTube videos in 2019. Use this list as a reference to help you produce better content.

1. Share links that start playback at a specific time

Once videos are uploaded to YouTube, you can share them on other platforms. But there are instances when you’ll want to share only a portion of your video.

For example, maybe you’re discussing a specific topic in a social media post. You realize that you’ve already covered this in a YouTube video. 

However, the video is five minutes long. The content that’s relevant to your post doesn’t get addressed until the three-minute mark.

No problem. Just click on the share link to get started. (This is how you would normally share any video on YouTube.) By default, the video will play from the beginning, as expected. You have the option to change this by using the options that pop up after you click on the share button. Here’s what it looks like:

At the bottom of this menu, check the “Start at” box, and type the time mark at which you want the video to start playing. (Alternatively, you can pause the video before you click on the share button. The timer will automatically be set at that point. You still need to check the box for it to work.)

Once this feature is enabled, the URL’s share link changes. As you can see, the link in the image above ends with “t=158.” This link will start playing the video 158 seconds in, which is the 2:38 mark.

2. Add a transcript

Adding a transcript will make it easier for users to find your videos and your channel through YouTube as well as Google searches.

By default, YouTube will automatically generate a transcript for all your videos once they are uploaded. You just need to make sure you haven’t hidden this option from your audience. (You have the ability to edit your transcripts as well, so review them to catch any errors.)

YouTube also provides a feature for you to manually type your own transcripts as you play the video. Here’s an example of what a final transcript looks like once a video is uploaded:

In some instances, you may want a video or audio file transcribed for other purposes. For example, maybe you have a recording of a seminar you recently spoke at or of an important conference call. Now, you want to refer to the video to help you write a blog post. It’s much easier to use a transcript instead of constantly having to pause, fast forward, and rewind a video to catch your speech.

Upload that content to YouTube, and get a free transcript of it. You don’t have to share or publish the video on your channel if you want to keep it private. You’ll still be able to get the content transcribed free.

3. Create a GIF with any YouTube URL

GIFs are one of the top visual elements you can use to improve your marketing strategy.

Rather than using GIFs from a library everyone has access to, you can create a GIF from a YouTube video. You have the option to use either your own videos or videos from other channels.

This is very easy to do.

First, find the YouTube video with the clip you want to use. Next, insert the word “gif” after the www. The URL will go from www.youtube.com/watch to http://www.gifyoutube.com/watch. After you change the URL, you’ll automatically get redirected to gifs.com.

The video will be ready to edit and turn into a GIF. Here’s what the screen will look like:

You’ve got lots of options here to make your GIF unique. Start by determining what portion of the video you want to turn into a GIF. Next, you can determine the length of your GIF. Add captions. Crop the video. Play around with effects.

Once you create your GIF, download it, and share it on your other marketing channels.

4. Organize your videos with playlists

If you have lots of videos uploaded to your YouTube channel, playlists are the best way to keep them organized. When a user navigates to your channel, they will have the option to watch different playlists that have similar videos grouped together.

Here’s an example from the Food Wishes page:

As you can see, the videos are organized by different types of recipes based on holidays and other events, e.g.:

• Super Bowl
• Christmas
• New Year
• July 4th
• Memorial Day

It will be much easier for viewers to find what they’re looking for here.

YouTube also allows you to collaborate on your playlists with a friend. From your playlist settings, navigate to the “Collaborate” tab. Here’s what it looks like:

Once you add a collaborator, this user will be able to add videos to the playlist. This can be a useful way to manage your relationships with social influencers—simply have an influencer upload content directly to your channel through a playlist.

5. Create a custom URL

You want to make sure your business has a custom URL on YouTube. You won’t get this by default.

If you have a new YouTube channel, you won’t be able to create a custom URL right away. These are the requirements:

• account is 30 days old
• photo set as channel icon
• channel art uploaded
• at least 100 subscribers

Once you hit these marks, you’ll be eligible to get a custom URL.

You can find this option within your account settings. Just navigate to the Advanced menu:

Before you claim your custom URL, make sure you think it through clearly: you won’t have the option to change it once it gets approved.

6. Add an actionable end screen

What do you want a viewer to do when they finish watching one of your videos? If you want the user to keep watching more videos or visit your website, you can add these CTAs to an end screen.

From your video manager page, click the “Edit” button for the video you want to change. Then find the “End screen & Annotations” link from the drop-down menu:

A pop up will appear. Depending on your marketing goals, you can add one or more of these elements to your end page:

7. Use enhancements to edit videos

You might already be using some third-party software to edit videos before you upload them to your channel. (Editing is a great way to create killer video promotions to increase engagement.) But if you don’t need to do anything elaborate, you can take advantage of the YouTube enhancements feature. This allows you to edit directly on the platform.

The enhancements feature lets you add or change music and audio, apply filters, trim sections out of your video, and blur portions of it.

You can even edit content after a video has already been uploaded to your channel. However, unless you are part of the YouTube partner program, you might not be able to make all the changes to videos with more than 100,000 views. 

You’ll always have the option to blur faces, even if your video has more than 100,000 views and you’re not part of the partner program. YouTube allows this to help protect the identity of people in your video.

8. Broadcast live streams

Has your business jumped on the live video bandwagon?

If not, it’s time for you to hop on board. That’s because 82% of people say they prefer live videos over social media posts from business profiles. Furthermore, 80% of people say they would rather watch live video content than read blog posts about a topic. 

Believe it or not, consumers actually prefer YouTube live streams over Facebook Live. 

YouTube allows you to go live from your desktop computer or mobile device. You can keep an archive of your live streams that were added to your YouTube channel so people can watch the content even after the stream is over. But you can disable this feature if you want.

Want to grow your audience even more? Consider this: 87% of people said they would watch more live videos if they contained behind the scenes content.

8. Upload 360-degree videos

We now know that 360-degree videos increase engagement rates. These videos have a 14% higher ROI than regular videos. They also have a 46% higher completion rate than traditional videos.

This is the type of content people want to see with 360-degree videos.

When it comes to a 360-degree video, 98% of consumers living in the United States say they think it is more exciting than any other type of video.

And 90% of people believe content will be improved if it can be viewed as a 360-degree video instead of a traditional format.

Having a 360-degree video increases the chances that viewers will interact with it by 66%.

What’s even more impressive is that 70% of marketers believe that adding 360-degree video content has helped improve their businesses.

9. Use Google Trends to find popular search terms

How do you know what type of content you should upload to YouTube? Try searching for keywords related to your company on Google Trends. This will show you the popularity of a search term over time and tell you whether you should be creating content on that subject.

Here’s what “content marketing” looks like on Google Trends:

As you can see, this is the interest in the term over time in web searches. You can’t assume it’s the same on YouTube. Click on the menu, and select “YouTube Search.”

As you can see, the trends are different. 

This free Google tool will enhance your marketing strategy. You can also use it to help you create titles and descriptions that are search-friendly on YouTube.

10. Run ads on YouTube

YouTube is owned by Google. This means you can set up YouTube ads through your Google Ads account.

You’ll have the option to do the following:

• select your audience
• choose locations you want to target
• set your budget

This is very easy to do, especially if you’re already using Google Ads for other purposes.

Here are the different formats you can choose from to advertise on YouTube:

The type of ad you select will impact the price you pay.

It’s worth noting that 51% of marketers in the United States advertise on YouTube and 52% of brands plan to increase their advertising budgets on the platform. (There is a good chance that at least half of your competitors are already advertising on YouTube. Get on it!)

Conclusion

By the year 2020, 80% of Internet traffic will come from videos. That means you need to keep up with the times and produce video content in 2019.

YouTube is the best place to upload your videos. From there, you’ll be able to distribute the content on other channels as well. 

But you have to be doing more than simply uploading videos and leaving them there with no further action. You need your videos to have an edge to be successful. 

These tips and tricks will definitely bring your content to the next level. 

What type of video content is your brand adding to your YouTube channel?

Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2LEQ2Sl

Questions About Autographs, 401(k) Contributions, Trusted Financial Advice, 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. Pulled out in a panic
2. Collection of old autographs
3. Saving enough for retirement?
4. Trusting bloggers for financial advice
5. The cost of high expenses
6. Inexpensive way to learn chess
7. Overcontribution to 401(k)
8. Worried about stock market
9. Questionable stock market advice
10. Inherited piano
11. Lesson from grandparents
12. Myers-Briggs personality type

I’m writing this while sitting on the couch at my in-laws. Everyone is asleep except for the dog, who is curled up next to me. I can smell some kind of baked good that was left out overnight to rise.

It feels warm. It feels like family. It feels like home.

On with the questions.

Q1: Pulled out in a panic

So I know you encourage people to invest for the long term and avoid trying to time the market. But let’s just say hypothetically that back in October 2018 that I pulled my 401k out of the market into a fixed account. Are there any things you would use to decide when to put the money back into the market. Right now it is looking like it was a smart/lucky move and I have easily avoided a 10% loss if not more. I realize I ignored your original rule to invest for the long term and don’t time the market. But in my situation are there any market indicators you would look to before moving from a guaranteed fixed account back into the market?
– James

Yes, you were lucky to have pulled out in October because the stock market happened to drop about 15% since. The thing is, as with most stock market corrections, it’s a normal correction that’s basically impossible to predict. You just happened to pull out right at the exact moment to benefit.

Will it go down more? Maybe. Are we at the bottom and the rebound is about to commence? Maybe. The thing is, it doesn’t really matter one way or another – stocks are a long term investment for everyone who isn’t a professional investor and thus if you’re relying on stocks for long term growth for retirement, that’s where your money should be regardless of ups and downs and normal bumps and corrections. Timing doesn’t work.

In your shoes, I put that money right back into stocks assuming that you’re more than ten years from retirement. Then I just sit on it and forget it. You’re basically now able to buy 10% more stocks with that money than you sold, but that’s largely due to a lucky call. It could have easily gone the other way. Stocks (ideally in the form of index funds) are a “buy and hold” for pretty much everyone who isn’t a full time professional investor.

Q2: Collection of old autographs

In a recent estate sale I bought a big box of books for just a few dollars. I brought them home and went through them and found a couple of journals from the estate in there which I returned. I also found what seems to be an autograph book that was used in the 50s and 60s and has a bunch of autographs from people like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. It’s pretty cool and seems like it would have value but I’m not sure what to do with it.
– Jerry

The first thing I would do is get the autograph book authenticated through a service like JSA. You want to be sure that the autographs are authentic and legitimate and not just someone imitating signatures or something.

Assuming they’re authentic, those are some pretty heavy hitting autographs and probably have some significant value. You’d probably want to move on to talking to the memorabilia representative of a reputable auction house. Explain that you have an autograph book that’s authenticated and list the signatures included and ask whether that would be something they’d be interested in handling.

This may be worth a significant amount, or it may not be worth much at all, but those are the steps I’d follow to figure out which side of the coin it’s on.

Q3: Saving enough for retirement?

Proceeds from the sale of my home will partially be used to remodel my new home from a 1970s replica to modern day. I’d like to take half of the proceeds and save it in a 3% CD. My question is—at what point does quality of life (ex. Dream trip to Italy) outweigh growing retirement? How will I know when I have enough retirement savings to say ciao while I am still young?
– Cleve

The honest truth is that you don’t know, at least not for sure, because no one knows what the future holds.

The best estimate I can make is that if people start saving 10% of their income for retirement as soon as they start working at a full time job, they should be in good shape to retire at age 67 (when Social Security will likely kick in for them).

If you haven’t started yet and you’re older than that, the percentage should be higher. My really rough estimate is that you should start saving about 12% a year if you’re 30 and haven’t started yet, 15% a year if you’re 35 and haven’t started yet, and 20% a year if you’re 40 and haven’t started yet. Beyond that, you should probably assume that you’re either going to have some big spending cuts when you retire or you’re going to be saving a much larger percentage of your income.

You can always choose to save less, of course, but that likely means either a leaner retirement or working until you’re older. Saving more means you can retire earlier or have a fatter retirement (I know a fellow who retired around age 72 or so who actually made more when he retired).

Q4: Trusting bloggers for financial advice

How can you say that someone should trust a financial blogger such as yourself? The internet is loaded with fake news and salespeople selling snake oil.
– Tim

For one, I’m not selling anything. Everything I write is done without a sales pitch or anything else; it’s just supported by advertisements around the edges, like a newspaper or magazine.

For another, I wouldn’t expect you to wholeheartedly accept any advice I write without verification. You shouldn’t take action on anything you read online (or offline) without getting the info from several sources. The Simple Dollar should be a starting point, not the final destination; it should be one source among many.

I do not have all the answers, nor do I claim to. I’m just sharing my experiences and what I know so that people can use that to make better financial decisions and make a better life for themselves. You absolutely shouldn’t take my word for anything I write and you should look at lots of sources before making big decisions.

Q5: The cost of high expenses

My company just changed the 401K administrator. We went from 0.01-0.05% in expense ratio on the funds to 0.5-0.6%. The worst part is that this was sold to the employees as something worthy due to active management. We have one of the better 401K plans in the industry where if the employee contributes enough to get maximum match we will end up with about 14%. However the latest development with the expense ratio is throwing the equation off. My estimate is that we will lose about $250-400K over 30 years in fees & opportunity. My HR has shown interest in listening to me and asked to provide details. Can you suggest the best way to show the effects of high expense ratio with some credible research sites, calculators, industry trend, etc.
– Alex

I think the easiest way to explain it is with numbers.

Let’s say you have two investments that are identical. One has an expense ratio of 0.01% and the other has an expense ratio of 0.5%. You invest $10,000 in each and they both return 7% per year before expenses.

After the first year, the first investment is worth $10,698.93 and the other one is worth $10,646.50. Not a huge difference, right?

Well, let’s look at the 10 year mark. The first investment (the one with a 0.01% expense ratio) is worth $19,651.85 and the second investment (the one with a 0.5% expense ratio) is worth $18,709.78. The bad expense ratio has cost you $942.08. That’s almost 10% of your original investment down the tubes! It only gets worse from there.

A bad investment ratio is only fixed by an investment that’s earning far better returns, and the likelihood of that is extremely small. Take a look at the long term numbers of the high expense ratio investment. Does it frequently beat the market? If not, it’s really not worth it.

Q6: Inexpensive way to learn chess

I noticed that one of your readers asked about cheap ways to learn chess. I highly recommend the website: https://www.chesskid.com/. It has great video tutorials that teaches you how to play chess. You can also practice playing on the website. If you try to make an “illegal” move with a chess piece, the website won’t let you do it, which teaches you what you can do with each piece. You can also select a level for the computer to play with you (beginner, intermediate, advanced). There is also a section where you can practice your tactics or play set positions. I’ve used it myself to learn chess and found it quite enjoyable and entertaining.
– Chloe

This looks like a really solid chess resource for beginning players.

Chess is a great frugal hobby. It really only requires a chessboard and some time and, ideally, an opponent. As you get better, you might want to add a few small things like a few chess books (which you can get from the library at first), a clock, and some books.

My youngest son is currently rather enamored with chess. He’s usually coaxing someone into a game several times a day.

Q7: Overcontributions to 401(k)

My new employer just made a mistake with my 401(k). From my bonus it took $4200 and applied it to my 401(k). By the end of the year that amount will have put me about $3000 over the $18500 employee contribution limit. I intend to ask my employer to cancel my last contribution so that I will only be about $2700. But what happens after that is what concerns me the most.
– Kevin

Contact your plan administrator and tell them you made an “excess deferral.” They will send the excess money to you as a “corrective disbursement.” You’ll pay taxes on that money and then pocket the rest.

If you don’t have a Roth IRA, you can use that disbursement to start one if you want to keep that money in retirement savings.

Be sure, whatever you do, that your income taxes on that disbursement are taken care of. Otherwise, you may have a surprise coming in April.

Q8: Worried about stock market

67 years old bad health 28k in 401k lost 4000 in the last week all in a S&P Index Fund. Should I cash out? It is the only money I have due to job loss and starting over in my 50s.
– Jim

Without knowing the full picture of your situation, I can’t exactly suggest what you should do.

It sounds like your situation is that you’re retired and on Social Security with a small amount in your 401(k). In that situation, you need to decide what you intend to use that money for. Is it an emergency fund for you? Are you going to use it for a significant purchase at some point?

Whatever you intend to use it for, estimate how far down the line that expense is. If it’s more than ten years, leave it in the S&P index fund. If it’s less than ten years, leave it in the 401(k) and move it into a bond fund or a money market fund. Don’t pull it out of the account until you actually need the money.

Q9: Questionable stock market advice

Just got your weekly email and was really dissapointed with “Worried about stock market….” article. There is no real message in your article, it’s just “simple words”, just “noise”. If people have their retirement funds in stock market because (I don’t), it’s because they read sites like yours…and when they’re seeing their money disappear – you say “oh, don’t pay attention…it doesn’t matter if you loose you retirement…keep saving and you’ll be fine”. They will not be fine and you know it. “Don’t lose money…” – it’s basic.
– Eric

My stock market advice is very simple and straightforward.

If you are more than ten years from using money, it should be invested aggressively – a stock market index fund is a good choice. If you are less than ten years from using money, it should be in something less aggressive, like a bond index fund or a money market index fund.

It doesn’t really matter what the individual markets are doing at the moment. They’re going to go up and down over time, particularly more aggressive investments like stocks. The thing is, in general, over a longer time scale, more aggressive investments (like stocks) going to go up at a faster rate than less aggressive ones (like bonds).

That’s it. When you’re more than ten years from your goal, put your money into something aggressive, like stocks. When you’re less than ten years from using that money, move it to something less aggressive, like bonds.

I’ve been giving that advice when the stock market was skyrocketing and I’m giving it now and I’ll give it again when things rebound. That’s because it’s principle-based and has nothing to do with the momentary rises and drops of markets.

Q10: Inherited piano

I enjoy playing piano as a hobby and occasionally play at church as a backup. I live in an apartment and have a small keyboard. My grandmother died and heft her Steinway to me. I have no room for it in my apartment and couldn’t get it in here if I tried. I am supposed to take possession of it by February. I am not sure what to do with it. If I had a big house I’d love to own it but for now it would just go in storage and I can’t afford the storage. Should I just sell it on Craigslist?
– Jenny

If I were you, I’d tell your extended family about it and see if any of them want the piano. Simply state that you do not have room for the piano in your apartment and you want to know if any of them want it.

If no one wants it, then sell it. I don’t think anyone will think badly of you for doing so. You really don’t have a place to put it, after all.

Craigslist would be a good way to start unless it’s a truly mint condition piano or it’s a high end model.

Q11: Lesson from grandparents

Spent the weekend at our grandparents for what will probably be the last family Christmas there. They’e getting quite old and simply don’t get around as well. They managed to pull off a big Christmas dinner and beautiful decorations but they just looked exhausted all weekend. I learned that they had spent literally weeks preparing for this and they struggle to do things like mow the yard and have started paying for people to do it. My brother and I decided to just start mowing their yard during the summer – I live about 20 minutes away and can do it every other week.

It got me thinking about how expenses go up when you’re retired not down which seems to go against financial advice. Thoughts?
– Andy

Some expenses definitely go down when you retire. Almost all retirees eat out less and have far lower transportation costs, for example. Their entertainment costs often go down as well.

You are correct in noting that other expenses tend to appear in retirement, but whether those expenses overtake all of the savings depends greatly on the individual. Some individuals do just fine with household tasks for many years and then decline rapidly, while others go through many years where they’re not quite able to handle household tasks without paid help. Some individuals have a great deal of family and neighbor support, while others have none.

It really depends on the situation. I think the general trend is that expenses decline immediately after retiring, but often rise slowly in subsequent years as the kinds of expenses you mention start to come online.

Q12: Myers-Briggs personality type

What is your MBTI personality type? I am an INFJ. Have a feeling that your personality is quite similar: introvert, insightful, and liking to help others. Let us know please!
– Carrie

MBTI refers to Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality profile that splits people into sixteen different types, each represented by a four letter acronym. The test differentiates people based on four principal psychological functions – sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking.

I’ve taken the test several times and always came up as an INTJ (introversion, intuition, thinking, judgment) or INTP (introversion, intuition, thinking, perception). I’ve been told that the I and N are both really obvious when interacting with me, but the T and the J (or P) aren’t as obvious.

I don’t put a whole lot of weight into the test, but it is an interesting summary of an individual’s personality.

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 Autographs, 401(k) Contributions, Trusted Financial Advice, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2Q17twH

These Women Each Made a Ton of Money — Just for Losing Weight

“I knew I could be at 300 pounds within months,” recalls Teresa Suarez, describing her steady weight gain before she took control and drastically changed her life.  

“The fact that my clothes aren’t plus size anymore is huge.” And, according to her BMI, she’s “no longer morbidly obese — that’s a great boost!”

Last December, Teresa weighed 266 pounds. She knew she had to make a change.

“It was traumatic to see the scale say 266 … I was depressed and constantly getting hurt.”

Teresa had tried to start working out by joining a gym, but it didn’t work. “I basically paid to not go to the gym for two years.” This time around, Teresa needed an extra push to boost her motivation.

While browsing Facebook, she came across an article about how she could get paid for losing weight. That’s how she discovered HealthyWage.

Six months later, on October 22, 2016, Teresa had lost 68 pounds — 8 pounds more than her goal!

The secret that finally pushed her to meet her goal? Through HealthyWage, Teresa placed a bet she’d meet her weight loss goal — and she won big.

She bet $125 per month she would lose 60 pounds in six months. When that final weigh-in confirmed her success, Teresa won $2,415.28.

Get Paid to Lose Weight — Seriously

It sounds too good to be true, we know. We thought for sure there’d be a catch, but after talking with several people who lost weight using HealthyWage, we haven’t found one.

If you stick to your goal and lose the weight you say you’re going to, the company pays you. It’s as simple as that, everyone assures us.

In fact, we’ve been following the company for a while now. We know of at least a few Penny Hoarders who would give a positive review of HealthyWage having won huge prizes for losing weight.

Caitlin McKenna bet herself she would lose 61 pounds in nine months. She nailed it — lost 63 pounds and won $3,180.

Kimie Pruessner found out about HealthyWage through her employer and lost over 50 pounds in 10 months. She won $2,500.

For Angela Harkins, it was about doing something positive for herself and saving money to build a home.

Angela learned about how to get paid to lose weight through HealthyWage. She bet $50 per month for 18 months that she could lose 50 pounds.

She reached her goal and won $2,400 to put toward a down payment on a new home.

“I’m healthier and I have a lot more money now!” she says.

What Motivates You?

At first, Angela wanted to make extra money to buy a house. But as her energy and self-esteem increased, she began discovering new sources of motivation and excitement that pushed her along.

With an increase in self-confidence, she finally signed up for a martial arts class, something she had always wanted to do but was afraid to take on until she started losing the weight.

Angela just needed the catalyst to get her moving.

Betting money she didn’t want to lose was the kick-start she needed.

Teresa agrees. Knowing she stood to lose money if she didn’t reach her goal weight was the encouragement she needed to finally make the lifestyle changes she’d tried to accomplish in the past.

And not only did she beat her goal weight, she’s still losing!

Participating in the HealthyWage challenge “totally changed the way I think about eating and exercise,” she explains.

That’s an important key to this challenge.

HealthyWage isn’t a diet program or weight-loss regimen. While you’ll benefit from joining the community, reading tips and exchanging recipes, the company’s main purpose is facilitating your bet.

You put up the collateral. You conduct your weigh-ins. You choose your weight-loss goal and time frame.

Really, HealthyWage doesn’t make you lose weight — it just handsomely rewards you when you do.

Because she controlled her own diet changes and exercise plan, Teresa says it’s now a part of her daily routine.

“When I was on vacation in Cancun, I was doing lunges, crunches and burpees in my hotel room,” she states. “I can’t stand burpees, but now I do them.”  

Here’s How Healthy Wage Works

If you want to get paid to lose weight, here’s how to get started:

1. Start at the HealthyWage Prize Calculator. You’ll enter how much weight you want to lose (10-150 pounds, minimum 10% of your starting weight), how long you’ll take (six to 18 months) and how much you want to bet ($20-$150/month). The calculator then determines your prize amount, up to $10,000. You can play with the calculator until you get the prize and goal just right, and you’ll know your prize amount before officially placing your bet.

2. Sign up and lay down your bet. You agree to pay the monthly amount for the duration of the challenge.

3. Achieve your weight-loss goal, and win your prize! You’ll start and end your challenge with a video-recorded weigh-in to demonstrate your weight loss. Throughout the challenge, you’ll also log weekly weigh-ins, but not on video. These help ensure you’re losing the weight in a healthy way, not through extreme measures.

4. If you don’t hit your goal, your money goes to support HealthyWage, including prizes for others who achieve their goals.

Ready to get started? Enter your information in the HealthyWage Prize Calculator to find out how much you can win!

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.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.

source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2CxkZ7N

Amazon Might Owe You a Free Month of Prime. Here’s How to Find out

Ah, the perks of Amazon Prime.

We love free two-day shipping, free same-day shipping, free movies, free music and even free photo storage (for when your phone won’t stop letting you know your storage is full).

Yes, those are some solid benefits, but it will cost ya — about $119 a year.

Wanna know our secret, though?

You can get compensation, in some cases a free month of Amazon Prime, if one of your guaranteed shipments arrives late.

Find out If Amazon Owes You

You might’ve heard of Paribus.

The free tool tracks your online purchases from more than 25 merchants. When it detects a price drop, it’ll work with the retailer’s price-match policy to help get you the difference. When it detects an Amazon guaranteed shipment is late? It’ll work with Amazon to compensate you.

But what if you got free shipping as a Prime member? We’ve spoken with several shoppers who’ve gotten a free month of Prime as compensation.

Here’s how to make sure you get compensated for late shipments:

• Sign up with Paribus. All you need is your email address.
• Let Paribus do its thing, passively tracking your orders.
• If it detects a late guaranteed shipment, it’ll work with Amazon to get you compensated.

Happy free shipping, Amazon Prime members!

Disclosure: Paribus compensates us when you sign up using the links we provide.

Carson Kohler (carson@thepennyhoarder.com) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s managed to ease back on her Prime orders… it was a little out of hand there for a while.

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.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.

source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2BBwnOo

This Company Pays People up to $10,000 to Shed Some Pounds