The Single Best WordPress Plugin Across Every Essential Category

WordPress powers 30% of the top 10 million websites. It controls more than 60% of the of the CMS platform market share.

Needless to say, it’s a popular solution for running a website. WordPress itself is great; but it’s limited in terms of its built-in functionality.

That’s why plugins exist.

What exactly is a WordPress plugin?

It’s essentially an app for your website.

I love how WordPress is designed to be lean out of the box. This prevents code bloat — your website isn’t dragged down by bulky code for things you don’t need or use. The core of WordPress is simple. You can customize it with plugins.

The core of WordPress is designed to be lean and lightweight, to maximize flexibility and minimize code bloat. Plugins then offer custom functions and features so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs.— WordPress Codex

Installing a plugin to your WordPress site provides you with advanced features that aren’t available with the bare bones version of WordPress.

Where can you get a plugin? There are a number of places, but the primary source is the Official WordPress Plugins Repository.

In-Depth Reviews of the Best WordPress Plugins in 13 Categories

In the official repo you’ll find a plugin for nearly every feature you can imagine. Actually, there are hundreds of plugins for each specific function. As a matter of fact, there are more than 54,300 WordPress plugins. It’s an overwhelming number to say the least.

That’s why I took the time to identify the best WordPress plugins for the most popular categories. I’ve already created extensive guides for each one of these 13 categories. Every guide contains a list of the best WordPress plugins in each segment. And if you’re after something specific, you should check out that post — many of plugins I recommend are for particular use cases.

This my the complete list of my in-depth plugin reviews for…

• SEO
• Google Analytics
• Backups
• Caching
• Security
• Forms
• Popups
• Galleries
• Social media
• Calendar
• Membership sites
• Directory
• Booking

The Best of the Best WordPress Plugins

Each of those posts reviews multiple plugins in each category. But most people don’t need to go that deep. That’s why I made this best of the best list. This is a resource to identify the top must-have plugin for each category.

The plugins on this list are not the niche options; these are the plugins that will appeal to the masses. They’re the WordPress plugins I’d recommend broadly.

Best SEO Plugin for WordPress — Yoast SEO

There are hundreds of WordPress plugins that will help improve your SEO strategy, but one stands above the rest.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is an all-in-one solution for your WordPress SEO needs. With more than five million active installations, it’s one of the most popular WordPress plugins on the market. I’m not saying you should always follow the crowd, but a number that big is a great indication of quality.

Why I like it:

• Create and manage XML sitemaps without having to code on your own
• Identify and avoid duplicate content on your website
• Comes standard with templates for meta-descriptions and titles

Cost: Free; $89 per year for premium

Best Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress — MonsterInsights

Google Analytics gives you in-depth knowledge and insights about your website traffic. By installing a plugin, you can have access to all of your Google Analytics reports without leaving your WordPress dashboard.

MonsterInsights is the best WordPress plugin for Google Analytics. This plugin lets you add your Google Analytics code to your website without any manual coding required. It’s advanced and versatile enough to handle analytics for all websites, including ecommerce shops. No wonder it has two million active installations.

Why I like it:

• Detailed reports about your audience and their behavior on your website
• Helps ecommerce sites track KPIs like conversion rates and average order value
• Identifies your best content and top performing landing pages

Cost: $99.50 for a basic website, $199.50 for ecommerce sites, and $499.50 for agencies and developers — all plans billed annually

Best Membership Plugin for WordPress — MemberPress

The whole concept behind a membership website is to drive recurring revenue with a subscription business model. You can offer premium features and content to your paid members. In order to set this up, you’ll need to install a plugin to manage memberships and payments on your WordPress site.

MemberPress is the best plugin for this category because it makes it easy for you to convert your existing website into a membership site, without having to start from scratch. All you have to do is add the details of your payment gateway and set up your products and content in a members only area.

Why I like it:

• It supports payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe
• Integrates with your email marketing software
• Comes with pricing page templates for membership options

Cost: $129 per year for Basic, $249 per year for Plus, and $349 per year for Pro

Best WordPress Backup Plugin — VaultPress

In the event of a crash or malicious attack on your website, a backup plugin will be there to restore your content and minimize downtime. It will also act as a fail-safe against human error on your WordPress dashboard.

We’ve been using VaultPress here on Quick Sprout since 2011. So naturally, I think it’s the best WordPress backup plugin, or else I’d switch to something else. It’s so easy for you to set up and automatically back up your website content. You don’t need to be a tech wizard to use this plugin.

Why I like it:

• Great for site migrations, restores, and file repairs
• The calendar view allows you to locate and restore content from old backups
• Built-in file scanning and spam defense helps reduce chances of malware, viruses, spam, or a malicious attack

Cost: Plans range from $39 to $299 per year

Best WordPress Cache Plugin — WP Rocket

Adding a cache plugin to your website will help you speed up your page loading times. Out of more than 900 cache plugins available, one stands out as the best.

The WP Rocket WordPress plugin is extremely versatile. It’s simple enough for beginners to figure it out, but has advanced features that can meet the needs of developers with more technical experience.

Why I like it:

• Quick setup and simple navigation
• Image on request feature (images are only loaded when the scroll depth is reached)
• Minifies JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files to speed up loading times

Cost: $49 per year for one website, $99 per year for three websites, and $249 per year for unlimited websites

Best WordPress Security Plugin — WordFence Security

Roughly 90,000 websites get hacked every day — 83% of those websites use WordPress. Clearly, security needs to be at the top of your priority list. You can install a WordPress plugin to help beef up your website security.

More than two million WordPress websites are currently using the WordFence Security plugin as a security solution. The plugin fights against malware, spam, and other threats in real time. It’s a great option for those of you who don’t have a background in IT or cybersecurity. You’ll still be able to secure your website with WordFence Security.

Why I like it:

• Block attacks from specific regions that are known for cybercrime
• See trends and reports about any attempted hacks on your website
• Firewall blocks and brute force attack protection comes standard

Cost: Free; premium version starts at $99 per year with other add-ons available for purchase

Best Form Plugin for WordPress — Ninja Forms

Website forms are crucial for collecting information. It’s the best way to get your website visitors to sign up for something, like your email subscription list.

Ninja Forms is great because of its seamless integration into your WordPress dashboard. Once you have this plugin installed, you can create your first form in just minutes. That’s why it’s no surprise that more than one million websites use Ninja Forms.

Why I like it:

• Can integrate with your email marketing software
• Collect payments with Stripe, PayPal Express, and Elavon
• Export and analyze the data that’s submitted through forms

Cost: Free; $99 per year for Personal, $199 per year for Professional, $499 per year for Agency. Add-ons range from $29 to $129 per year.

Best WordPress Gallery Plugin — NextGEN Gallery

WordPress has a basic image gallery. However, I wouldn’t recommend using it because it’s so limited. For truly improving the visual appeal of your website, you’ll need something extra. A gallery plugin is ideal.

NextGEN Gallery is one of the best WordPress plugins because you’ll have so many different gallery options to choose from. Other plugins just give you a couple of basic templates for adding images. It’s a great option for photographers and artists.

Why I like it:

• Customize slideshows with effects, transitions, and timing
• Add watermarks and hotlink protection to your images
• Ecommerce integration for selling images on your site

Cost: Free; paid versions available for $79, $99, and $139 per year

Best Social Media WordPress Plugin — Super Socializer

Your website needs to be integrated with your social media profiles. Otherwise, you’re not maximizing the potential of your social media. WordPress plugins can help you increase the exposure of your website content on social media.

There are so many social media WordPress plugins designed for specific features. But Super Socializer is more of an all-in-one solution. So if you don’t want to install multiple social media plugins, I’d definitely recommend Super Socializer.

Why I like it:

• Site visitors can use their social login information to create an account on your website
• Add social sharing icons to your pages
• You can get more blog comments by enabling social comments

Cost: Free

Best WordPress Calendar Plugin — EventON

Every business needs to stay organized. Calendar plugins can help you manage events, tasks, and bookings on your website. Some of these plugins are more advanced than others, but overall, there’s one that shines above the rest.

EventON allows you to create calendars that will “wow” your website visitors. We’ve all seen websites with boring calendars that look like they were designed a decade ago without any updates. That definitely isn’t be the case here. EventON has modern designs that are visually appealing and fully functional.

Why I like it:

• It can manage events lasting for multiple days, weeks, or months at a time
• Add images to your event listings and integrate them with Google Maps
• Sell event tickets with Woocommerce support

Cost: $24; add-ons sold separately

Best WordPress Directory Plugin — Directories Pro

Directories are extremely versatile. Whether you want to add a directory to your site for internal purposes or create a global platform of business directories, the right WordPress plugin can help you meet those needs.

No matter what type of directory you want to add to your website, the Directories Pro WordPress plugin will make it possible. This plugin is highly responsive and uses caching to boost your website’s performance. Make sure to enable reviews for your directory to enhance the content. You can even integrate listings with Google Maps.

Why I like it:

• Drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for you to customize the directory without coding
• Include an option for websites to claim their listing in your directory
• Add paid listings to your directory

Cost: $39

Best WordPress Popup Plugin — Layered Popups

Do you want to add popups to your website? Popups can be great for getting email subscribers, driving downloads, generating sales, or enticing other actions on your website. Regardless of your intention, you’ll need a WordPress plugin to make it work.

Layered Popups is great because you can create popups that are visually appealing, so you have a chance to get creative. These popups will clearly stand out to your website visitors. It’s a chance for you to make unique popups compared to what people are used to seeing on other websites.

Why I like it:

• Integrates with 56 of the most popular email marketing platforms
• Run A/B tests to fully optimize the performance of each popup
• Multiple options for triggering popups (such as exit intent or scrolling depth)

Cost: $21

Best WordPress Booking Plugin — Bookly

Booking plugins are necessary for any website that takes appointments or reservations. Online booking systems will optimize your process on the back end while simultaneously improving the customer experience. If you’re not allowing online bookings, you’re ignoring the preferences of the majority of your customers — 70% of people prefer to book appointments online with service providers.

Bookly has a sleek and modern design on both the frontend and backend. Booking options are completely customizable and fully responsive. You’ll definitely want to install Bookly if you’d like to take your customers through a quick and easy booking process.

Why I like it:

• Custom pricing and availability for different employees (such as trainers at a gym)
• Option to process payments or collect deposits at the time of booking
• Customers can set up recurring appointments or get added to a waiting list

Cost: $89; add-ons sold separately

Conclusion: What’s the best WordPress plugin?

These are the best overall options for each of the essential categories. Keep in mind, I identified these as the best because they appeal to the widest possible audience. Some of you may want plugins that have more specific features and functionality within each category.

For example, you might want an SEO plugin that specifically helps you identify relevant keywords while you’re blogging. Or maybe you want a social media plugin that just adds your Instagram feed to your website.

Do you want a Google Analytics WordPress that’s made for tracking specific events on your website? There’s a plugin for that too.

There are caching plugins that are better for things like the cloning and migrating content between servers. The list goes on and on.

So I’d definitely recommend reviewing the individual guides for each category as well. That way you’ll know for sure that you’re installing a plugin that meets your specific needs.

More WordPress Plugin Guides

• Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
• Best Google Analytics Plugins for WordPress
• Best Membership Plugins for WordPress
• Best WordPress Backup Plugin
• Best WordPress Cache Plugin
• Best WordPress Security Plugin
• Best Form Plugin WordPress
• Best WordPress Gallery Plugin
• Best Social Media WordPress Plugin
• Best WordPress Calendar Plugin
• Best WordPress Directory Plugin
• Best WordPress Popup Plugin
• Best WordPress Booking Plugin

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Be Super Cheap on Everything That Doesn’t Matter… But What Doesn’t Matter?

The core of the personal finance philosophy I offer here at The Simple Dollar is really simple.

Spend less than you earn, make that gap as big as you can, and bank the difference.

That’s pretty much my entire personal finance philosophy in a nutshell, but it naturally leads to lots of other ideas and strategies. For example, let’s zoom in on the idea of minimizing one’s spending, because that’s inherently part of that equation. If you’re trying to make the gap between your spending and your earnings as big as you can, then by default you have to be seeking to minimize your spending, right?

So, here’s my spending philosophy:

Be super cheap on everything that doesn’t matter to you while spending responsibly on the things that do matter to you.

Let me give you a concrete example or three.

As long as my clothes are clean and not dingy, the type of laundry soap I use doesn’t matter to me, so I prefer to use a homemade recipe. It consists of equal amounts of washing soda, borax, and soap flakes, stored in a plastic container with a tablespoon measurer. It costs a small fraction of what store-bought laundry soaps do and does a good job for cleaning.

As long as a meal is nutritious and tasty, it doesn’t have to be fancy, so I usually aim to prepare meals for an average of $1 per person per meal (we have a family of five, so that still adds up). We have a rotation of simple meals that our family likes that get in well below $1, but we occasionally mix things up with a fancier unusual meal.

On the other hand, something I deeply care about is reading. I love reading challenging nonfiction and epic fantasy and science fiction series and I’m at least somewhat picky on what I read. That’s something that is deeply important to me, so I’m willing to spend money to make it happen. When I’m in the midst of a series, I want to read the next one in the series as soon as I’m done with the last one; when I’m engrossed in a topic, I usually read several books on that topic and I want to read the next highly regarded book on that topic. For me, the library is a valuable resource in making that happen, but sometimes I will buy a book if I can’t get it from the library in a reasonable timeframe.

These three examples make the idea clear. If something isn’t important to me, I strive to spend as little as possible on it. On the other hand, if something is actually important to me, I’m willing to spend money on it in a sensible way.

Here’s the problem: how do I clearly know what matters to me and what doesn’t?

At first glance, you might think this is a silly question. Isn’t it self-evident what really matters to a person and what doesn’t?

You might think so, but that’s not actually true for a number of reasons.

First, we’re often swayed to care about things for a short while because of the influences around us. Our friends might sway us to care about something for a little while that we really don’t care about. Marketers are extremely skilled at this, using things like product placement and social media influencers to drive desire for their product. On top of that, there’s pure impulsiveness, where we see something we might enjoy in the moment and jump for it, even though it’s not something that really matches what we want from life.

Second, we often convince ourselves we need some rather high level of quality on things we don’t really care about or don’t care about enough to have their needs met. For example, this is why people will buy $30-50 bottles of shampoo and conditioner; sure, they want nice soft shiny hair, but that can be achieved without some $40 bottle of fluid with some designer name on the front. Your hair might deserve good treatment, but good treatment doesn’t have to come in a $40 bottle.

Third, we often incorrectly estimate how often we’ll use an item. If an item really matters to you, you’re probably using it every day or at least several times a week. If you’ve never used an item before, you really have no sense of how often you’ll use it, so it’s kind of silly to buy the premium version right off the bat, yet people do this all the time. We’ll overinflate in our own minds how often we’ll use something or do something.

Similarly, we often underestimate how often we “splurge” on “treats.” I had a reader who was completely convinced that she “splurged” on a coffee and a muffin once a month at most, but when she reviewed her credit card receipts, it was a twice weekly thing. That’s not a splurge, that’s a routine.

This brings us to my last point: we often get stuck in routines, often based on the path of least resistance. We do something once, it seems to achieve whatever goal we have, so we stick with it. Often, that first solution isn’t really very optimized, but it works. This is why we end up in a routine of buying a name brand version or an expensive version of something that we don’t really care about. It’s all about the routine and the path of least resistance, and we pay for it.

All of these factors serve to convince us that something really matters and that we should pay extra for it. In truth, a lot of those things don’t really matter that much to us, and we should be paying the absolute minimum necessary for it.

The trick, then, is to really understand what things actually matter to us and let go of spending anything extra on everything else.

How do we do that? Well, we tackle each of those factors that is keeping us spending money on things that don’t really matter. Here are four strategies for doing that, one for each of the points noted above, and one underlying strategy that can make the others easier.

Strategy #1 – Reduce Your Influencers

I tend to think of situations where I think of something as important to me when it really isn’t as a “false positive.” “False positives” lead to spending mistakes.

So, what causes “false positives”? One of the biggest sources is your influences – the things that steer your thinking, particularly in the short term. Friends. Social media. Product placements. Effective advertising. Branding. “Recommendations” from online stores. Things like that. Things that cause you to think positively about a product when you honestly don’t care about it.

Those kinds of positive thoughts are very fleeting, but they’re sometimes enough to get you to make a purchase that you wouldn’t otherwise make.

What’s the solution? Get rid of those influencers, especially in situations where you might spend money. Minimize their presence in your life.

A few good tactics:

Cut down on social media. Only follow people you actually know. Don’t follow companies and brands. Don’t follow famous people, as they often do paid product placements on social media to earn some extra cash at the expense of your attention.

Don’t shop socially and cut out “retail therapy.” Shopping will not make you feel better in any lasting way and it’ll likely end up making things worse. Don’t shop with friends or for the purposes of entertainment.

Don’t read “news” that is just fawning over a new product. All it does is create a desire in you to buy. Just skip by those articles entirely; in fact, avoid news sources that have those kinds of articles with any consistency. I’m looking straight at 24 hour cable news sites here.

Strategy #2 – Start (Over) from the Bottom

One great way to discern exactly what things matter to you and what things don’t is to start over from the bottom on all of your regular purchases. Buy everything store brand, in other words, and even make some things yourself if you wish to.

The next time you go to the store, buy store brand dish soap. Buy store brand trash bags. Buy store brand sugar. Buy store brand ketchup. Buy store brand hand soap. Buy store brand everything. When you get to the checkout, you’ll be surprised how much lower your bill is.

Take that stuff home and use it as normal. What will happen is that 95% (or so) of the stuff you buy will work just fine and you won’t even give it a second thought. Those are the things you should continue to go super cheap on going forward.

It’s the other 5% that require some additional attention. What problem is this product causing you? What needs is it not fulfilling? It’s worth your time to do some homework here to find a “bang for the buck” version of that product that meets your needs without having to buy the most expensive version. Often, you’ll wind up buying a “middle of the road” item in terms of price that matches your needs perfectly, and that’s what you should buy going forward.

When we go to the grocery store, our cart is almost always loaded up with store brand items and fresh produce. Name brand items are pretty rare. Why? The store brands meet our needs, so we go cheap on them.

Strategy #3 – Begin with the Basics

The same thing is essentially true when you’re buying a new kind of item because you’re diving into some new kind of activity for yourself. It might be something like a musical instrument or a piece of sports equipment or a tool for your kitchen or a new kind of spice.

Whatever it is, your initial purchase should be a very low end version, and ideally a used version.

Why? When you’re buying something for the first time, you have no idea whether this item is actually going to fill a meaningful role in your life. You think it will, but using it with any frequency is going to require some changes in the routine of your life and you simply can’t be sure whether that’s going to actually happen or not.

Thus, the first item you should buy of a particular type should be an inexpensive one. Your excitement for the new item will convince you to use it at first, but what really matters is what happens when that “honeymoon excitement” wears off. Are you going to stick with this new thing, or will it fade?

Most of the time, it fades, and thus you’re far better off investing as little as possible in it.

If it doesn’t fade, you can keep using the basic version of the item until you can specifically articulate on your own exactly what’s wrong with it and how it’s not meeting your needs. That might never happen, but with many interests, it eventually will happen.

That is the situation where it makes sense to carefully research and pick the right item that matches your needs, not before. At that point, you know you’ll use the item a lot and you know exactly what you need out of that item, so you can make an intelligent shopping decision.

A final point of advice: think through the features you want before shopping when you’re about to upgrade. That initial purchase isn’t a big deal – you’re just getting a low cost entry level item to figure out if it works for you. The replacement is the one you want to get right, so you should figure out the features you want and do your homework on the item before ever shopping around for it. Don’t get swayed by extra features that don’t matter to you or the smooth talk of a salesperson.

Strategy #4 – Carefully Examine Your Routine Spending

Another very useful strategy for moving towards being super cheap on everything that doesn’t matter to you while spending responsibly on the things that do matter to you is to carefully review your routine spending outside of the moment.

Here’s an easy way to do just that.

Sit down with your monthly credit card statements and your debit card statement. Go through each and every line item on those statements and ask yourself a simple question: “Was this expense actually worthwhile?”

If you can’t answer an immediate strong “yes” and are able to explain why, then you should strongly consider cutting out that expense going forward.

I do this strategy every few months and I almost always find a few incidental expenses that just didn’t really matter to me in the long term. Thankfully, I don’t find nearly as many as I once did, but they still pop up.

What I’m really looking for are clear patterns. I might notice that I had a bunch of little expenses when I went to visit family members, all of them forgettable. Why didn’t I just pack a bag of food to take with me and save about 75% of that expense? I might see that I spent money at a local convenience store multiple times in the month. Why was I even stopping there?

Part of the reason for seeking out these patterns is that they’ll point to an easy and obvious behavior change. The process reveals that there’s something going on that convinces me that a purchase is worthwhile when it’s really not, so I need to change around some behavior of mine a little to get away from whatever it is that’s convincing me of such an unneeded purchase.

Strategy #5 – If a Cutback Hurts, Give It Some Careful Thought

The best spending strategy I’ve ever found for me in terms of keeping my spending low while still having money for things I really care about is to “cut first and ask questions later.” If I’m in doubt at all about a purchase, I just say no to it or, if I have to buy something, I go for the cheapest option available.

If I find that I regret a purchasing decision afterwards, I spend some time thinking about why I regret it. In general, because of my “cut first and ask questions later” mindset, my regrets are due to underspending rather than overspending.

So, when I’m evaluating a purchasing decision that I’m unhappy with, it’s usually because I cut too deep. I’ll then ask myself why I’m unhappy with that decision and I make an effort to dig deep into it.

Usually, I find that if I’ve cut too hard and I regret something, it’s because that cutback did damage to something else that I value. Maybe I did something that hurt a friendship, or maybe I actually infringed on some hobby or area of life that really matters to me and it wasn’t obvious at first glance.

The truth is that 99% of the time, when I say “no” to an expense, it’s utterly forgotten quite quickly, so it’s clearly not important to me. It’s that other 1%, where I’m thinking about it and I’m bothered, that triggers additional consideration.

I usually try to use the five “why’s” when I find that I’m troubled by a spending choice. Why did it bother me? Why does that bother me? I do that three more times and then I’m usually close to a real truth. It’s hard, but when I do it, I end up usually figuring out something that’s worthwhile.

More importantly, I figure out something that’s actionable, a real principle I can follow going forward. I figure out that I deeply care about something and it’s okay to spend a little more in that area, or I realize that some expense is actually deeply tied to an area I care about.

Almost always, this leads me to a new “spending rule” to follow in my head, which is important because most spending that I do – that we all do – is the result of almost subconscious following of a bunch of rules and ideas in our heads. We don’t even think about it – we just follow an almost instinctual response to situations. Reflecting on a bad spending choice until I really understand why it is bad usually alters my spending habits in a good way, so that going forward there are fewer and fewer spending mistakes when I operate on instinct.

Final Thoughts

So, how do I clearly know what matters to me and what doesn’t?

For me, it’s about the feeling once I’m outside of the immediate situation. The trick is being able to evaluate that situation when I’m not invested in it at the moment and recognizing that such situations really don’t matter, then carrying that forward in a way that I remember.

Most of the time, this just turns into something simple, an obvious rule I can follow. Don’t stop at the convenience store. Buy store brands except for these two items. When you go out with your friends, don’t stop at a shop somewhere.

What each “rule” does is that it guides me in a very gentle way away from expenses that don’t matter in the big scheme of things, expenses that are likely snuck into my life by influencers or by momentary impulses.

These rules aren’t perfect. I’m nowhere near perfect in all situations. However, that kind of spending perfection is something worth aiming for, and the closer I get to it, the happier I am with my actual purchases, the less regret I feel later, and the better my bank account balance is.

Good luck!

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Is It Your First Time? Here Are Our Best Home Buying Tips

Starting and Growing Your Business with Alibaba.com

Sponsored by Alibaba.com Alibaba.com is the leading platform for global wholesale trade that continues to develop services to help businesses do more and discover new opportunities by bringing them hundreds of millions of products in over 40 different major categories. This month Alibaba.com is hosting their March Expo from the 5th of March to the […]

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9 Smart (and Simple) Ways to Stretch Your Budget When You’re a Single Parent

Website Security Guide

Your website is at risk.

I’m not saying this to try and scare you, but that’s the reality of the world we live in. More than 50,000 websites get hacked each day.

You can’t have the “it won’t happen to me” mentality. I encounter businesses all the time who feel this way. They think hackers have bigger fish to fry and don’t have any reason to target their website. That’s simply not the case. In fact, 43% of cyber crimes are against small businesses.

Roughly 54% of companies worldwide say they have experienced at least one attack within the last year. Just 38% of businesses say they’re prepared to handle cyber attacks.

I don’t have a magic crystal ball or some way to see into the future, but my gut tells me that cyber criminals aren’t going to just wake up one day and decide to stop hacking websites. So you need to take steps to improve your website security.

That’s what inspired me to write this guide. I’ll show you what needs to be done to secure your website today, in 2019.

Common website security threats

There isn’t just one way that websites get attacked. So before we proceed, I want to give you a brief overview of some of the most common threats to your website security. These are the things that you’ll want to avoid and be prepared for when taking security measures.

Spam

Usually, we perceive spam as something annoying. We all get spam emails delivered to our inbox or see the occasional spam popup when we’re browsing online.

However, sometimes spam is more malicious. Spam in the form of comments is extremely common on websites. Bots can hammer the comments section of your website with links to another site as an attempt to build backlinks.

While those types of comments are annoying and don’t look good on your website, they aren’t always damaging. But, some of those links might contain malware, which can harm your website visitors if they click on them.

Furthermore, Google’s crawlers can often detect malicious URLs and penalize your website for hosting spam. This will crush your SEO ranking.

Viruses and malware

For those of you who don’t know, malware stands for “malicious software.” So malware and viruses are essentially the same thing. Malware is arguably the biggest threat to your website. As much as 230,000 malware samples are created each day.

According to Statista, these are the most common types of malware used in cyber attacks across the world:

As you can see, malware comes in all different shapes and sizes. That’s why it’s such a big threat to your website.

These types of viruses are often used to access private data or use server resources. Criminals also use malware to make money with ads or affiliate links by hacking your website permissions.

With malware, both you and your website visitors are at risk. Someone visiting your site could click a link that downloads a malicious file onto their computer. It’s your job to keep your website secure and prevent that from happening.

WHOIS domain registration

Buying a domain name is like buying a house. The company that sells the house must know who they’re selling to and be able to contact them. This becomes public record.

The same goes for buying a website. Depending on the country you’re in, you’ll be required to release some information about yourself that’s recorded on WHOIS data. Outside of your personal information, this also contains information about your URL nameservers.

Hackers can use this information to narrow down the location of the server that you’re using. They can use this as a gateway to access your web server.

DDoS attacks

DDoS attacks deny access to users trying to visit a specific website. Basically, the hacker uses spoof IP addresses to overload servers with traffic. This essentially takes the website offline.

Now the host needs to scramble to get the server back up and running as fast as possible, which leaves the server vulnerable for malware.

Search engine blacklists

Technically, this isn’t a security threat. However, if your website isn’t properly secured, it can impact your SEO rankings.

According to a recent study, 74% of hacked websites were attacked for SEO reasons.

I briefly mentioned this earlier when we were discussing spam comments. If search engines detect malicious content on your website, your SEO ranking will suffer.

If lots of users are reporting your site as spam or unsafe, you could be added to a search engine blacklist. Once you’re on that list, it’s extremely difficult to get off.

How to keep your website safe

Now that you’re familiar with some of the most common security threats, it’s time to prevent them from happening.

You can’t just assume that your website is secure. If you haven’t done anything to beef up the security, it’s probably vulnerable for attacks. These are the steps you need to take to improve your website security in 2019.

Use HTTPS protocol

If your website isn’t currently using HTTPS protocol, it needs to jump to the top of your priority list. This essentially tells your website visitors that they’re interacting with the proper server and nothing else can alter or intercept the content they’re viewing.

Without HTTPS a hacker can change information on the page to gather personal information from your site visitors. For example, they could steal login information and passwords from users.

HTTPS protocol will also improve your search ranking. Google is rewarding websites that use this security measure.

This is comforting to people who visit your website as well. When they visit your site, they’ll see this next to the URL:

It’s secure and trustworthy. Now, compare it to a site that’s not using HTTPS protocol. The URL in the web browser will look like this:

Do you feel safe when you’re browsing on a website and see this? I don’t.

Furthermore, you can improve this security measure even more by combining your HTTPS with an SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate. This is required for ecommerce websites since users are submitting sensitive information like credit card numbers, names, and addresses.

While SSL certificates don’t necessarily prevent an attack or distribution of malware, it encrypts the communication between the server and the user’s web browser. Even if you’re not selling anything on your website, I strongly recommend using HTTPS protocol and adding an SSL certificate to add security.

Update your software

Any software you’re using on your website needs to be kept up to date. You need to update WordPress software, plugins, CMS, and anything else that requires an update.

Why?

In addition to fixing bugs or glitches, software updates typically come with security improvements. No software is perfect. Hackers will always be looking for ways to take advantage of their vulnerabilities.

Lots of cyber attacks are automated. Criminals use bots to just scan websites that are vulnerable. So, if you’re not staying up to date on the latest software versions, it will be easy for hackers to identify your site before you can do anything about it.

Choose a safe web hosting plan

In theory, if your web hosting provider has security on its servers, you’ll benefit from those same levels of protection. However, that’s not always the case.

Going with a shared hosting plan might be appealing because of the price, but it’s not the most secure choice you can make. As the name implies, you’re sharing servers with other websites if you choose this type of hosting plan.

If one of those other sites gets attacked, a hacker can gain access to the server that you’re using as well. I’m not trying to steer you away from a shared hosting plan, but if you want to boost your website security, you’ll be better off with another option.

Check out my list of the best web hosting services, which can help guide you in the right direction.

Change your password

Change your password! I can’t stress this enough.

All too often I speak to people who have the same password for everything they own, and it’s something they’ve been using since they were in college ten years ago.

Here’s the problem. Let’s say you’re a foodie. So you have an account with a popular restaurant review website that requires your email address and password to write reviews. If that platform gets compromised, hackers have access to your username and password. If they find out you own a certain website, they can try that same password and login to your administrative settings.

Shockingly, 25% of passwords can be hacked in just three seconds.

The information from this graph was obtained using an open source software called John the Ripper. Anyone can use this tool to crack passwords.

If software like this can figure out 53% of passwords in just two hours, I can promise you that the best hackers are cracking passwords even faster.

That’s why you need to constantly update your password. You can use a password manager like 1Password to help you generate long passwords with special characters that are nearly impossible to solve.

Furthermore, you should pick a web host that’s using two-factor authentication. This will add an extra layer of security for password protection. If your web host doesn’t offer this, there are other ways for you to enable it on your own using apps or third parties.

Secure your personal computer

Don’t allow your own devices to threaten your website.

There is malware out there injects malicious files into websites by stealing FTP logins. It’s easier for a hacker to accomplish this if they target your personal computer as a gateway into your website. So make sure your computer has antivirus software. Surprised that antivirus software is still a thing — it’s especially important if you use a PC or are downloading files online. You might unintentionally install malware onto your machine without knowing it.

The last thing you want is to be careless while you’re browsing online and have that mistake end up hurting your own website. Scan your machine on a regular basis.

Use tools to monitor your security

You can’t manually prevent attacks on your website. Instead, look for online tools and resources that will monitor your site’s security for you. I highly recommend looking at my guide on the best WordPress security plugins.

The plugins on this list add a firewall to your website while simultaneously fighting malware, spam, and other threats in real time. You can run security audits that will highlight your vulnerabilities so you can take preventative measures to stop an attack before it happens.

Limit user access

Don’t blame yourself, but 95% of cyber security attacks are the result of human error.

The best way to prevent this is to limit the number of humans who can make an error. Not every employee of your business should have access to your website.

If you’re hiring an outside consultant, designer, or guest blogger, don’t automatically give those people access to change settings on your website. Implement the principle of least privilege, also known as the principle of least authority or minimal privilege.

Let’s say you assign a project to someone that requires a certain level of access to your website. By applying this principle, you only give them access for the time it takes them to complete the task. Once complete, the person goes back to their regular access abilities.

Make sure each user has their own login credentials. If multiple people are sharing a username and password, it doesn’t give them any accountability. Your team is much more likely to be careful with sensitive information if an error or change can be traced back to them.

Backup your website

When it comes to securing your website, you should always prepare for the worst. Obviously, you never want to be in a situation where your website is compromised. But in the event that something goes wrong, your life will be much easier if your content is completely backed up.

So try using a backup plugin, like BackupBuddy, to make sure you don’t lose anything on your website as the result of an attack.

BackupBuddy is one of the five best WordPress backup plugins that I reviewed for this year. So check out the full list to see which option is best for your situation.

Some of these backup plugins also come with built-in security measures as well, which can help you prevent an attack.

Adjust your default CMS settings

As I said before, so many attacks these days are automated. Hackers program bots to find sites with default settings. This way they can target a wider range of websites and gain access using the same type of malware or virus. Don’t make it so easy on them.

Once you install your CMS, make sure you change some of the default settings:

• Comments settings
• User controls
• Visibility of information
• File permissions

These are all examples of some of the settings that you can change quickly and right away.

Restrict file uploads

Letting website visitors upload files to your website can be risky. That’s because any file could potentially contain a script that exploits vulnerabilities on your website when it’s executed on the server.

In some instances, the nature of your website might require file uploads. For example, you may want users to add photos of your products when they’re writing a review. In this case, you should still treat all uploads as a potential threat.

You could also set it up so that any files that get uploaded are stored in a folder or database in another location. You can create a script that will fetch those files from a private and remote location to deliver them to a browser.

This will require some coding and is a bit complex to set up, so I won’t go into too much detail on this right now. The simple solution is to avoid file uploads altogether, or at least restrict the types of files that can be uploaded to your site.

Conclusion

Website security needs to be one of your top priorities.

If you haven’t taken any steps to secure your website, you’re currently at risk while you’re reading this.

It’s nearly impossible for any website to be 100% safe and secure — hackers are always going to find new ways to attack websites and steal information. But you can make this difficult on them by taking the security measures that I’ve outlined above.

At the end of the day, if cyber criminals are having a tough time hacking a website, they’ll just move on to other sites that haven’t implemented the website security tactics that we talked about. You don’t want your website on that list.

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Some Thoughts on Figuring Out Where to Live

The other day, I had a long conversation with a younger relative about the decision making process that Sarah and I went through to decide where we currently live (on the edge of a town in rural Iowa). Why did we end up choosing to live here? What was the thought process in that decision?

After the conversation, it occurred to me that this might make for a really useful article for some people, so what follows is the conversation rewritten into a sensible article.

The Five Criteria

For us, there were five criteria that helped us decide where we wanted to live.

The first criteria was proximity to work. Sarah and I wanted to minimize our total commute, if possible. Not only does this save time, it also saves us money on reduced fuel costs.

In a practical sense, that either means living midway between our workplaces or living in a place where at least one of us has access to mass transit. Given where our respective jobs were at the time, this meant finding a place that was roughly midway between our two workplaces. It didn’t have to be exact, but close.

What we actually did is draw a circle around each of our workplaces that represented a 30 minute one-way commute, and then we searched for houses in that overlap.

The second criteria was proximity to food sources. In other words, where do we go to get our groceries? It turns out that both of our commutes takes us right by grocery stores without needing to take extra turns or exit, so this wasn’t a big deal. It just requires some careful planning.

Since then, a discount grocer opened up within biking distance of our home, which has been incredibly convenient. It’s worth noting that if you have both your workplace and a grocery store (or a mass transit stop that takes you to either) available within walking distance, it likely means you can go without a car, which is an enormous savings.

The third criteria was cost. How much do houses cost in that area? What’s the cost of living in that area? We noted the cost of a bunch of properties up for sale that met our criteria within the overlapping circles on our map (as noted above).

Rural Iowa, as long as you’re within reasonable driving distance of food, is a pretty inexpensive place to live. Property values are low compared to most other areas of the country and the cost of living is low due to access to a lot of food producers. Day to day life is pretty inexpensive here, which is a big mark in its favor.

The fourth criteria was quality of local services. Namely, we wanted to live in an area that had decent schools and ideally had a low crime rate. We noted the crime rate in communities within the overlap of our circles (as noted earlier, we used overlapping circles to figure out where to live), as well as the borders of the school districts.

The final criteria was proximity to family and our core circle of people. This was the weakest aspect of where we chose to live. We chose to live about three hours from our family and most of our friends had moved out of the area at the time.

I will say that I feel we missed out in some ways by not living closer to family, but I don’t consider this a make-or-break deal. To us, this is the least of the criteria, but still one worth considering. Having family nearby when you have young children is extremely helpful.

Using Those Five Criteria

I gave some hints as to how we used those five criteria in the description of each above, but let’s spell it out.

The first thing we did is literally take a map that included our two workplaces and drew circles around them that indicated what would roughly be a 30-minute commute for each of us. The part of the circles that overlapped indicated the area in which we would look for housing, which, for us, meant a nice slice of rural Iowa with several towns within it.

The mass transit options in the towns we were each working in were either nonexistent or extremely limited, so we didn’t consider that option. If we had, it would have made the other partner have almost an hour-long commute each way.

So, we had this little oval shaped area where we were considering housing.

As I noted above, we had decided that we were just going to buy groceries near our workplaces, as we both worked very close to grocery stores. When needed, one of us would just shop for groceries after work. Thus, we didn’t worry about being close to food.

That being said, if we were in a situation where we were both living in a city with access to mass transit, we would definitely consider proximity to groceries. Being able to stroll down the block to buy groceries is an enormous financial benefit.

Our next step was to figure out property values in that oval. We looked at the cost of buying several houses that met what we were looking for within that oval and discovered that there was actually a surprising amount of variation within that circle.

What we found, though we didn’t quite expect it, is that most of the best property values in that area for the types of houses we were looking for were found in homes that had only a single owner beforehand and were spread throughout those towns, though they definitely clustered on certain streets. Most of these were starter homes bought by people who knew they might have to pick up and move or were intending to eventually buy a McMansion. These homes were notably less expensive than similar new homes or even older homes, though these homes often needed lots of small-scale fixes once you moved in.

At that point, we had identified a few specific areas that were really of interest to us – they had similar commutes for the two of us and the price was right. How did we choose amongst those homes?

Our next step was to evaluate the area in terms of other factors we cared about, namely schools, crime, and internet access.

First, we considered the school districts that were present within that oval and decided that we were happy with two of them and less happy with the third, which immediately eliminated some of the houses.

Next, we looked at crime rates in the various towns, which eliminated two of the towns. The other ones seemed to have much lower crime and better police coverage.

Finally, we looked at internet options in those towns and discovered that two of the remaining towns offered high speed internet. At the time, I was building The Simple Dollar (it mostly focused on frugality at the time) and also did some work at my main job remotely, so internet access was important.

This process narrowed us down to about 12 houses to consider. We watched for houses to go on the market in those areas and toured a few of them that were on the market and, within a month, we found the right one for the right price. We’ve been living here happily for many years.

For that final search, we just looked at a number of houses that were in our tight search criteria (roughly equal commutes, relatively low prices for what we wanted, low crime, good schools, good internet) and trusted our guts at that point. We just kept looking until we found a house that we really liked.

Our biggest mistake during our housing search was looking at houses outside of that tight criteria. Early on in our search, we looked at some houses that didn’t match our criteria – they were either too expensive or not in an area we wanted – and those visits not only skewed our expectations, they were basically a waste of our time.

My advice to anyone considering where to live is to use those five criteria to tighten where you want to live first, then look only at properties that match that criteria. You’ll have a much smaller group of places to evaluate and it will be much easier to come to a decision that you’ll be happy with. Once you’re down to that final evaluation, trust your gut and go for the property within that criteria that excites you.

This is the exact process we would consider if we were going to move again. It served us very well the first time and matches the more successful experiences of our friends and family.

Good luck!

Read more:

• Why You Should Buy Less House Than You Can Afford
• The Surprising Figure That Can Torpedo Your Chances of Getting a Mortgage
• How to Find the Best Mortgage Rates

The post Some Thoughts on Figuring Out Where to Live appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Wealthsimple Review | Investing on Autopilot

Wealthsimple is a robo-advisor popular for millennial investing, putting your “investing on autopilot,” as the company itself describes its services.

Wealthsimple is one of the best online investment managers in the industry, but is it right for you?

Let’s take a more in-depth look at this robo-advisor, including how Wealthsimple works, how the platform invests your finances, and its advantages and disadvantages.

Wealthsimple Overview

Wealthsimple is a key player in the robo-advising world, and it’s worth your time and consideration, offering comprehensive and enriching investment opportunities.

About Wealthsimple

It has over $1billion in assets under management and is backed by a team of experienced financial gurus and some of the best technological brains in Silicon Valley.

Wealthsimple’s personnel is composed of designers, data scientists, and software engineers who have previously worked at big corporations such as Google, Apple, and Amazon.

Wealthsimple is perfect for:

• Beginner investors
• Anyone who’s comfortable managing their funds online
• Socially responsible investors
• Those seeking Halal investment options to fit Islamic law
• If you’re looking to save money on fees.

What Wealthsimple Has to Offer

Wealthsimple is an automated investing service that delivers premium-quality, long-term investment management service with no account minimums.

It invests your funds in a diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that target low-cost index funds. This allows for the creation of a portfolio that has invested in thousands of different companies across various industries around the world.

Wealthsimple offers a wide range of services, including:

• Tax-loss harvesting: Wealthsimple helps protect you with tax-efficient investments.
• Dividend reinvesting: The beauty of a robo-advisor is that it reinvests dividends to keep you on target.
• Automatic rebalancing: Along those lines, Wealthsimple rebalances your investment allocations to help you reach your goals.

How Wealthsimple Works

Wealthsimple employs Modern Portfolio Theory in its investment strategy. Developed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Harry Markowitz, the theory states that you can minimize risk and maximize returns by diversifying your investments.

Signing up for Wealthsimple services is as simple as filling out a risk assessment questionnaire. The information you give will help in determining your initial risk profile.

Then, the robo-advisor will recommend a portfolio mix based on your investment goals, risk tolerance, time horizon, how much you understand about investing, and past investment experience.

The good thing is that you have the option to adjust your portfolio based on your specific needs, especially when the determining factors change over time. You can do that by making a call or sending an email to Wealthsimple. They’ll discuss your situation and make the necessary adjustments.

Start investing with Wealthsimple>>

Wealthsimple Portfolios

Wealthsimple offers four different portfolios designed to meet the needs of different investors:

• Wealthsimple Basic portfolio
• Wealthsimple Black portfolio
• Wealthsimple Halal Portfolio
• Wealthsimple Social Responsible Investing (SRI)

Basic Portfolio

Basic is the simplest Wealthsimple portfolio, targeting accounts with balances not exceeding $100,000. It charges a .50 percent management fee annually. Services offered by the Wealthsimple basic plan, include:

• Dividend reinvesting
• Automatic deposits
• Rebalancing
• A customized portfolio
• Tax-loss harvesting
• Human financial advisor

With Basic Portfolio, you can get any one of the portfolios represented in the table below:

Portfolio Type	Stocks	Bonds
Balanced	50%	50%
Growth	80%	20%
Conservative	65%	35%

 

The Basic portfolio comprises ten different ETFs. Six of those are stock funds, and the rest are bond funds.

Wealthsimple Black Portfolio

The Black portfolio is ideal for large investors, who are looking to invest at least $100,000. The management fee for this portfolio is 0.40 percent.

The Black portfolio gives you an opportunity to sit down with an experienced financial advisor to review your long-term goals and see how this portfolio can help you attain them.

With this portfolio, you also get to enjoy increased tax efficiency. Namely, the robo-advisor builds your portfolio with tax-efficient funds.

It’s also worth noting that the Wealthsimple Black Portfolio is created in the same way as the Basic Portfolio. That means it as also encompasses balance, conservative, and growth portfolios.

Moreover, this portfolio comes with some exciting perks, such as access to over 1,000 VIP airline lounges in about 400 cities around the world. You’ll also receive a complimentary Priority Pass membership for two.

Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) Portfolio

If you are looking to invest in organizations that focus on positively impacting the society or the environment, then the Wealthsimple SRI portfolio would work well for you.

This portfolio invests mainly in companies that promote either gender diversity, affordable housing, or low carbon emissions.

It invests in six different funds, which include stock funds and fixed income funds. There’s not much difference in cost from the Basic and Black portfolios.

If your investments fall below $100,000, you’ll need to pay a 0.50 percent annual management fee. However, the fee for the first $5,000 is waived. For investments above $100,000, you’ll pay a lower management fee – 0.40 percent per year.

Wealthsimple Halal Investing Portfolio

If you are looking for investment opportunities that uphold Islamic principles of investing, then you might want to know what the Wealthsimple Halal Investing portfolio has to offer. 

One major attribute of this portfolio is that it doesn’t include bonds. That’s in line with the fact that Islamic law doesn’t allow profiting from debt. Hence, the Halal portfolio invests solely on individual stocks.

The Halal Portfolio is a single portfolio that can’t be customized for every individual investor. It invests in the stock of 50 different companies. These companies have to represent those that largely follow Sharia law.

The Halal portfolio is created by a team of experts at Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), a worldwide provider of hedge fund stock market indexes fixed income, equity, and multi-asset portfolio analysis tools.

You should also realize that Halal Portfolio doesn’t offer conservative or balanced portfolios, and this is a higher risk portfolio as it is comprised entirely of equity. 

Opening a Wealthsimple Account

Opening an account with Wealthsimple is quite simple. All you need to do is follow the steps below:

• Click the “start investing” button on the Wealthsimple website and complete the online application.
• Answer a couple of questions about investing and then proceed to e-sign the company’s investment management agreement.
• You’re required to either upload a bank statement, void a check, or take a screenshot of your bank account to verify your bank.

If you get stuck along the way, you can call Wealthsimple customer service at 1-855-782-3559.

You can also email them at help@wealthsimple.com. You may not get enough educational content on Wealthsimple’s website, but the user-friendly website is impressive if you can do without the in-depth details.

Pros and Cons of Wealthsimple

What We Like About Wealthsimple

• New investors: Wealthsimple allows you to open an account with as little as $1. If you’re new to investing and don’t have much money to start with, Wealthsimple has your back.
• Socially-minded investing: With the Socially Responsible Investing Portfolio, you can invest in a completely diversified portfolio that upholds your values
• Halal investing: With the Halal Portfolio, Islamic investors can invest in a manner that upholds their religious principles.
• Tax-efficiency: All Wealthsimple taxable accounts come with tax-loss harvesting.

What We Don’t Like About Wealthsimple

• Fees: Some robo-advisors manage investment accounts for as little as 0.25 percent. Wealthsimple, on the other hand, charges 0.50 percent for up to $100,000 worth of investments. That fee is quite high compared to the robo-advising industry average.

Bottom Line

If you’re looking to invest in portfolios that are consistent with your values, you’ll never go wrong with Wealthsimple. Wealthsimple’s values-based investment offerings are unmatched.

It offers a variety of socially responsible investing and halal portfolio options. You also get to enjoy some additional goodies like tax-loss harvesting, no minimum balance, and access to experienced financial planners.

The major downside of Wealthsimple is its account management fees.

Management fees can have a significant impact on long-term investment returns, and hence you should consider the 0.4 and 0.5 percent management fees before you invest, especially if your account balance isn’t eligible for Wealthsimple’s lower advisory fee rate.

Learn more about Wealthsimple>>

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A Beginner’s Guide to Budgeting: 5 Steps for Getting Your Spending in Check

My money lessons: Investing for the first time

When second-year student  Ewan Waddington received the nest egg that his family had saved for him over the years, he didn’t splash out on nights out and takeaways as some students might. Instead, Ewan explains how he’s saving up for his first home and is trying his hand at investing

Since I was little, my parents have been saving for my future and relatives have contributed on occasion along the way. This year, my parents gave me control of my savings so that I can take responsibility for how I grow, save or spend the money.

I am in my second year of university studying mechanical engineering. But I want my savings to help with more long-term needs. I hope one day I will be able to buy a home and that I will have money that continues to grow way into the future. At first, I looked around for a savings account. I searched a comparison website to find the best interest rate that a bank could offer me. But I quickly realised that if I didn’t want my money to lose purchasing power over the years, I would have to do something other than just open a savings account. This is because inflation is higher than the AERs, or annual equivalent rates, most savings accounts offer at the moment.

So I started to ask trusted family members for advice. I spoke to those who have experience investing – successfully and unsuccessfully. A key piece of advice was to keep the cost of investing low as this can make a massive difference to how quickly your portfolio grows.  A key lesson from someone who did not do so well was DO NOT put all your eggs in one basket. Finally, because of the effect of compounding, I was advised to get started as soon as possible.

mymoneylessons-march2019.jpg

Planning ahead: Ewan Waddington Photo by Alyzah Adamson

Then I read two books on investing. I started with The Long and the Short of It by John Kay and Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor by John C. Bogle. The Long and Short of It was the most helpful because it is aimed at beginners and because it talked about UK markets. It also has a very helpful glossary. The key lessons I’ve learnt is that investing is a long-term commitment; you are taking a risk and there are lots of different approaches; and, as none of which are totally right, investors need to use a combination of all of them.

I also studied economics at A-level. It focused heavily on supply and demand graphs, which I found very dry at the time. However, in hindsight I did learn some helpful things about how markets work and what could be the cause of changes within markets. So this is my current plan. I am in the process of opening a Help to Buy Isa because I will receive a 25% government bonus on the money I save when I buy my first home. 

I will also open a savings account, from which I will withdraw money regularly to put into a low-cost tracker fund to keep things cheap. I will hold this fund in a Stocks and Shares Isa so that my investment will be tax free. Drip-feeding money into my Isa means I won’t risk putting all my money in when markets are high. I’ll also keep some cash as an emergency fund in case I need it sooner. 

I will do this until I have finished university in about two years. Then I will reassess the situation and see what I can afford to save once I’ve found a job. I’m sure at some point I’ll need to use the money to buy a property, but for now my plan is to reinvest my gains.

Do you have a lesson you’ve learnt about money you’d like to share? Please email editor@moneywise.co.uk

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Your last-minute Isa guide

Moneywise answers all your questions about tax-free saving and investing – but act quick to use your 2018/19 allowance.

If you want to start saving but are baffled by the Isa options, here’s our guide to all you need to know. 

Isas – Individual Savings Accounts – will be 20 years old in April and there has never been so much choice available for savers with cash savings, investment accounts, Isas for children and Isas to help you save towards your first home or boost your pension.

What is an Isa? 

Don’t get too bogged down in the jargon. Isas are just savings accounts where your money grows free of tax.

You don’t have to pay tax on anything your money earns – whether that is in the form of interest, dividends or capital gains tax.

There are six different types of Isa: Cash, Stocks and Shares, Help to Buy, Innovative Finance, Lifetime and Junior Isas. 

How much can I save?

The maximum Isa limit per person is £20,000 in each tax year, which runs from 6 April. If you haven’t opened an Isa since last April you could, in theory, save £20,000 in an Isa this month and then put a further £20,000 in an Isa from 6 April 2019 (the start of the next tax year).  

Is an Isa better than an ordinary savings account?

An Isa used to be the best place to start saving, as interest or returns would not be eroded by tax. But since April 2016 when the personal savings allowance (PSA) was introduced, basic-rate taxpayers can earn up to £1,000 in interest before tax, while higher-rate taxpayers can earn £500 before tax. Additional-rate taxpayers have no allowance.

As a result of this allowance, around 95% of people no longer pay tax on their savings. This has made Isas less important in the savings market, particularly as Cash Isa rates are often not competitive.

That said, for those with significant cash savings, Cash Isas are still an important tax haven. If your savings grow, you may find that in time you would reach the limit of your PSA, so using a Cash Isa before this happens can help.

Figures from financial research company Defaqto show a higher-rate taxpayer with more than £47,500 on deposit would need to use Cash Isas as well as the PSA to avoid being taxed on the interest. This is if they had their savings in top-paying instant-access accounts.

Which Isa is best for me? 

There are six different types of Isa, some with excellent benefits. But they come with restrictions and conditions, so which one is best for you depends on how long you have to save, how much risk you are happy to take, what you are saving for – retirement or a first home, in particular – and your age. 

You can also have more than one type of Isa at one time – so long as you don’t go over the annual limit or open more than one of the same type. The exception is between the age of 16 and 18 when you can hold both a Junior Isa (Jisa) and a Cash Isa, with up to £4,260 in the current tax year (rising to £4,368 after 5 April) in the Jisa and up to £20,000 in the Cash Isa.

Alternatively, you may want to consider an Innovative Finance Isa (IfIsa).

Launched in April 2016, the IfIsa, is a higher-risk investment Isa, which puts money into peer-to-peer loans or ‘crowdfunding debentures’. Peer-to-peer loans are where investors are matched up directly with borrowers who need money – whether that is small businesses or individuals. Crowdfunding debentures invest in a business by buying its debt.

There is the potential to earn higher returns, but you run the risk borrowers may not be able to repay their loans. There are a number of IfIsa providers available.

Some will be firms you won’t have heard of. Larger companies providing this type of Isa include Funding Circle, Lending Works, RateSetter and Zopa.

Is it complicated to set up an Isa?

It only takes a few minutes to open an Isa. Anna Bowes, co-founder of savings site Savingschampion.co.uk, says: “Opening a Cash Isa should be like opening any savings account. 

“The only extra information needed is your national insurance number. Many providers can do an electronic identity check for this, so will only ask for additional information if you fail the online check.”

If you want to save or invest before the end of this tax year (5 April 2019), remember to allow yourself time to open the account and for the checks to take place before the deadline.

Can I switch Isa providers?

You can switch your Isa funds to a different provider to take advantage of a better interest rate and you can switch from a Cash Isa into a Stocks and Shares Isa and vice versa. But you must transfer the funds in the correct way.

Do not close your Isa as you will instantly lose the tax-free status. You must apply to your new provider for a transfer of the funds and then wait – typically three to four weeks – for the transfer to complete. You must transfer the whole Isa balance for savings in the current tax year. For previous years’ Isa savings, you can transfer all or part of the account.

Not all providers will accept transfers, so do your research first. You can transfer your Cash Isa into a Help to Buy Isa or Lifetime Isa – subject to the limits of those accounts. You can also switch between Help to Buy, Lifetime and IfIsas, although note there is an exit penalty for switching funds away from a Lifetime Isa into a different type of Isa. There can also be time restrictions on transferring IfIsa funds due to the nature of the underlying investments.

Must I split my allowance equally among my Isas?

You can split your allowance in any proportion you like. Rules that restricted how you split your allowance ended in 2015. 

Do I need to tell HMRC about my Isa savings??

No. There is no need to put your Isa holdings on a self-assessment tax form.

What happens if I don’t use my Isa allowance?

When it’s gone, it’s gone. You cannot roll over your Isa allowance to into the following tax year. The new tax year starts on 6 April, and you begin with a fresh £20,000 allowance.

If you are considering adding to or opening a Stocks and Shares Isa, but won’t have time to decide what to invest in, some providers allow you to put your money in a ‘cash park’, so you have banked your Isa allowance but not yet invested your funds. Make sure inertia doesn’t lead to you leaving it there unintentionally – your cash is unlikely to earn any interest in a cash park.

How old do you have to be to open an Isa?

You must be 16 or over for a Cash Isa, 18 or over for a Stocks and Shares or IfIsa, between 18 and 39 for a Lifetime Isa, and under 16 for a Jisa.

Why hasn’t the Isa allowance risen this tax year?

Isa allowances tend to rise every year, at least by inflation. However, the past few years have seen some huge leaps in the allowance limit. In the tax year 2017/18, it rose from £15,240 to £20,000. This may have influenced the decision not to raise the rate this year. However, it may begin to rise by inflation again next year.

What happens to my Isas when I die?

If you are married, your spouse or civil partner can inherit your Isa, which will maintain their tax-free status for deaths on or after 3 December 2014. The funds are known as additional permitted subscriptions (APS). The surviving spouse or civil partner can reinvest the funds into a Cash Isa or Stocks and Shares Isa – or a combination of both – either with the existing provider or a new provider which accepts transfers. This is in addition to their own Isa allowance for the year.

“A Help to Buy Isa will boost my savings for my first home”

David-mculloch.jpg

David McCulloch, 33, from Carluke, Lanarkshire, has opened a Help to Buy Isa with Clydesdale Bank and intends to save the maximum £200 a month. David, who works for Scottish Power installing power lines, hopes to realise his dream of homeownership within the next year so the Help to Buy Isa was more suitable than a Lifetime Isa, where savers have to wait a minimum of 12 months before being eligible for the government bonus.

The Clydesdale Help to Buy Isa pays 2% interest but it is the bonus that appeals to David. He aims to save £3,400 plus a bonus of £850.

“I’ve been looking at mortgage options as I am hoping to buy my first place quite soon,” says David. “My mortgage adviser mentioned a Help to Buy Isa. It seemed a no-brainer as there will be a cash boost to my savings when the time comes to get on the housing ladder.”

Jo Thornhill is a freelance personal finance journalist who has written for the Mail on Sunday and This is Money

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The DWP owes me £100 towards my winter fuel allowance

Moneywise helps a reader whose mother is owed money

My mother is having trouble getting her full winter fuel allowance from the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP). She’s entitled to £300 as she’s 87, but she got a letter in November that said she was only to be paid £200 as she lives with someone who also received the benefit.

I am the only one living with my mum and I don’t qualify for the fuel allowance. I rang the DWP and it admitted the error and said a request would be made for the remaining £100, but it never arrived. I rang to chase it up but the woman on the phone was obstructive and said it would be paid any time up to 31 March.

Can you help?

MS/Cumbria

This was simple to sort out. I contacted the DWP with your mum’s details and concerns and pointed out she was naturally worried about being able to pay for heating when the bitterly cold spell hit in January. The response was rapid.

A DWP spokesperson told me: “A top-up payment has been made and a letter is on its way to the customer. Due to large volumes of correspondence sometimes customers are advised that issues may take a little longer to resolve.”

Your mum was relieved and thankful, but there are lessons here for all government bodies. While the DWP may have been deluged with complaints and queries about winter fuel payments, it still has a duty of care to its clients, particularly vulnerable elderly.

Fobbing them off with a generic: “You will have to wait until it’s sorted” really isn’t good enough. If someone is so concerned they have taken the time to contact the DWP, then staff should be trained to give a personal response with some actual details, rather than just brushing people off.

OUTCOME: DWP pays £100 fuel allowance owed

Simon Read is a a money writer and broadcaster. He was personal finance editor at The Independent and is an expert on BBC1’s Right On The Money

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Out Shopping? Earn Free Gift Cards — Just by Scanning Barcodes

Shopping is such a double-edged sword.

On one hand, you have sparkles dancing in your eyes as you walk down the aisles of Target and T.J.Maxx. You run your fingers across all the items promising you happiness. You feel thrilled watching the clerk bag up your new items as you’re checking out.

Then, on the other hand? G-U-I-L-T.

You’re afraid to check the damage in your bank account for the next few days. And the happiness you paid for slowly dissipates.

It doesn’t have to be this way, though. There’s a way to shop without feeling guilty — and you’ll earn free gift cards.

Get Paid to Scan Barcodes While You Shop

No tricks here — just (Shop)kicks.

Shopkick is an app that’ll give you free gift cards while you’re out shopping — just for scanning barcodes.

The best part? You don’t have to buy anything if you don’t want to.

Whether you’re sniffing candles at Target or stocking up on candy at CVS, open up the Shopkick app and find items to scan for points. Once you find the item in the score, scan the barcode and watch your “kicks,” or points, pile up.

Once you’ve collected enough kicks (most rewards are 250 kicks per dollar!), you can cash them in for gift cards to Amazon, Old Navy, Walmart, Starbucks, Sephora, Hotels.com and more.

Up the ante and use these strategies to earn even more rewards with Shopkick:

• Snap photos of your receipts. Earn more kicks when you take photos of your receipts that include qualifying items you purchased with a connected credit or debit card.
• Make an online purchase through the Shopkick app. That’s all you have to do!
• Walk into stores IRL and online. Yup, the app rewards you when you step (or click) into select partner stores like Yankee Candle, Foot Locker, Fabletics and more. No purchase necessary.
• Watch videos. Earn kicks in your spare time by watching in-app video ads. You might even discover new products while you’re at it.

You’re already going to shop, so why not get some rewards out of it?

Ready to get started? Kick your way to rewards with Shopkick for Apple or Android. 

Farrah Daniel (farrah@thepennyhoarder.com) is an editorial assistant 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.

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

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3 Online Shoppers Saved a Combined $1,673 When They Stopped Deleting Emails

Have you ever ordered something online only to notice that three days later, the price dropped?

Or maybe you didn’t even notice, because who has time to keep up with that?

The good news is a number of retailers have price-match policies, so if an item’s price drops within a set time period, you can get compensated. Monitoring your online orders, however, can become quite a job.

Thankfully, Paribus will track your online purchases from retailers it monitors for you — for free. If an item you’ve ordered from one of more than 25 major retailers drops in price, Paribus will shoot you an email and let you know how to get compensated.

3 Paribus Users Who’ve Earned Some Serious Money Back

Paribus is simple enough to sign up for; it took me no more than a minute to connect two email addresses. From there, it works in the background, notifying you when a qualifying item you ordered drops in price.

Sound too good to be true? Here are three Paribus success stories:

1. This Busy Mom Has Saved Close to $1,315.41

Aimee B. juggles a corporate 9-to-5 career and manages a blog while raising her son.

To save time, she does the majority of her shopping online — about 90% of it, she estimates. She stocks up on groceries, clothes and household necessities without leaving home.

In the past two years, Paribus has found Aimee $1,315.41 in savings while shopping online.

“It really is as simple as giving your email address,” she says. “It’s kind of a no-brainer.”

2. This Man Chipped Nearly $300 off a Home Depot Order

William Gove and his wife ordered a $927.35 wood chipper from Home Depot — quite a necessity when you live on eight acres of land in Maine.

About a week after they ordered the tool, Paribus notified them the price had dropped by $92.26. Then, when Gove got on the phone with a Home Depot representative to claim the difference, he was informed the price had actually dropped even more, and Gove would actually get $278.53 back on his card.

“I have to say, I was incredibly skeptical at first,” Gove says of Paribus. “But it saved us some serious cash.”

3. This Penny Hoarder Padded Her New Purse With $80

Kathleen Garvin, The Penny Hoarder’s outreach strategist and editor, is a huge fan of Paribus.

She signed up back in December 2016 and estimates she’s pocketed about $80 since. Her biggest win? Earning $21 back on a purse that originally cost $82.

Six days after placing her order for a Calvin Klein purse, she received an email from Paribus. The subject line read, “ACT NOW: $21 with your name on it.”

After following the email’s instructions, Garvin got that $21 back in her pocket about a week later.

See How Much Money You Can Reclaim From Online Orders

Want to see what kind of money you can get back using Paribus? Sign up using your Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook email address.

Then, let it monitor your purchases from more than 25 major retailers. You never know what kind of money you’ll get back.

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 a Paribus user.

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.

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13 Simple Things You Can Do to Add More Time to Your Day

When my daughter started kindergarten, I thought that I’d have so much more time for myself and my business. But what I quickly found out is, that between pick up and drop off, Girl Scouts, PTO, volunteering, regular exercise class, additional work hours, and homework, is that I somehow have less free time, than I […]

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