Chestnuthill TownshipRelative Assets LLC to John J. and Diane L. Barsuaskas, Lot 12, Oak Hill, $222,000East Stroudsburg BoroughMildred Martha Pilgrim (Est.) Linda Susan Cummings (Exr) to Gerald Arch, Land, "Subdivision of Lands of John Bilock, Lot 2, Tax ID 5-6/3/1/1-1, $200,000Hamilton TownshipJohn D. and Roberta Possinger to Anthony D. and Teresa DiSimone, Parcel, R.D. 2, Stroudsburg, Township Route T-467, [...]
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السبت، 26 نوفمبر 2016
For some in middle class, Trump plan would mean tax increase
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump's proposals would modestly cut income taxes for most middle-class Americans. But for nearly 8 million families — including a majority of single-parent households — the opposite would occur: They'd pay more.Most married couples with three or more children would also pay higher taxes, an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found. And while middle-class families as a whole would receive tax cuts of about 2 [...]
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Alpine Mountain aims to become motorcycle park
Don’t expect to see skis on Alpine Mountain any time soon — look for tires instead. Developers plan to replace the ski resort in Price Township with a multi-functional motorcycle park.“They’re calling it Alpine Moto Park,” said owner Kevin Fabiano. In 2014, he and son Kevin Fabiano Jr. bought Alpine Mountain Resort from Appletree Management.Fabiano filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on the ski resort in March. Then [...]
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The ugliest time of the year
Retailers thrive on the ugly Christmas sweater trend
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Achieving Financial Success Without Extreme Frugality or a Huge Income
It’s not too hard to find stories in the media about seemingly ordinary people finding great financial success. You hear about what seems like an ordinary guy or gal who worked in what seemed like an ordinary career path and somehow they’ve got a million dollars in the bank. How did they do it?
Unfortunately, many of those stories have additional details that you don’t read about in the headlines. Often, you’ll find that those people practiced a level of frugality that seems like complete misery to you. They live in a very tiny home or they eat a very strange diet or they never leave the house or they homestead for all of their food needs. Sometimes you’ll find that although their job title is ordinary, they’ve actually earned a ton of money through either a higher-than-average salary or some other financial benefit (like receiving an inheritance of some kind).
At that point, the walls come crashing down. Rather than giving the idea that anyone can do this, they again reinforce the idea that financial success is something that only occurs in exceptional circumstances.
I’m here to tell you that it’s actually quite possible to achieve financial success without extreme frugality and without a lot of wealth already in the bank and without a huge salary.
Since the start of our professional lives, my wife and I have never earned more than about 25% above the average American salary with the exception of one year where I almost worked myself into a mental breakdown (never again…). We don’t make a ton of money. We also have three children at home and anyone with children knows that they’re money pits, so it’s not like we’ve got tons of income to spare, either.
At the same time, we’re not extremely frugal. I try different things for experiments in my writing, but in our day to day lives, I don’t consider us to be insanely frugal in any way. We eat normal meals, have normal hobbies, and have normal lives.
Yet, over the past decade, Sarah and I have paid off two car loans that measured in the five figures, then eventually replaced those cars and paid for them in full. We paid off our student loans, which was in the five figures for each of us. We also paid off a ton of credit card debt, also measuring in the five figures. We bought a four bedroom home and then paid off the entire thing in about four years. Right now, we have no debts – not even a mortgage – and are saving for actually retiring early.
How is that even possible? It’s possible thanks to using a handful of very smart strategies along the way. The rest of this article is a basic blueprint for what we did.
Focus Your Frugal Efforts on Things You Don’t Care About (or Barely Care About)
People have this false impression that frugality is all about deprivation. When people think about being frugal, about cutting back on their spending, the first things that their mind flashes to are the expenses in their lives that they really care about.
Think about it yourself. When I suggest cutting back on your spending, what do you think about? It’s incredibly likely that most of your immediate thoughts come down to things that you get a lot of personal pleasure out of (with a few of your worst spending mistakes sprinkled in there for good measure).
That’s a completely backwards approach to frugality. That’s an approach that’s virtually guaranteed to be miserable and guaranteed to fail. You’re simply not going to succeed in terms of cutting your spending if your image of cutting your spending is taking away the things you most enjoy in life.
The truth is that the actual success of frugality comes from cutting away things you barely notice and then not spending that money you save but instead using it for something financially positive. It comes from doing things like air sealing your home so that you’re not wasting warm air during the winter months. It comes from things like buying store brand hand soap and store brand laundry soap. It comes from things like making a grocery list before you go to the grocery store. It comes from negotiating for a better insurance package. It comes from moving closer to work so you don’t have to drive each day.
It doesn’t come from eliminating a stop at a coffee shop if you truly love that perfect morning coffee. It doesn’t come from completely abandoning your favorite hobby. It doesn’t come from sitting at home by yourself while your friends have fun. Those are unrealistic visions rooted in a fear of change, a change that has nothing to do with an effective approach to frugality that will actually earn dividends.
Use this approach when you look through big lists of money saving tips. Don’t do the ones that sound like they’d make your life substantially less enjoyable. Instead, focus on the ones that seem like they’d feel almost effortless and the ones that, when you think about it for a second, you realize that it wouldn’t be much of a change. Focus on ones that involve doing one big thing up front and then having it permanently reduce a bill. That’s effective frugality. That’s the kind that will last. And, honestly, it’s pretty fun, because you realize you’re making a low-impact change to your life that will have better long-term results.
Learn How to Cook Well Enough So That It’s More Convenient to Eat at Home
Food is such an enormous drain on the budgets of so many families simply because of the huge cost difference between restaurant food and meals prepared at home. The difference between the two is astronomical, and when you keep repeating that cost difference several times a week, it really adds up.
Believe it or not, the average American family eats out more today than they eat at home, even with that huge price difference. Why? There’s this perception that eating out is simply way more convenient than preparing food and eating at home.
In my experience, that perception is borne out of a lack of comfort that many people have in the kitchen. Cooking a decent meal seems intimidating. Even cooking a simple meal can seem intimidating. When you’re intimidated, your mind amplifies the challenge of the work involved, and when your mind starts to amplify the work involved, it makes eating out seem so much easier that it makes up for the cost difference.
How do you beat that perception? You beat it by actually getting experienced in the kitchen, and you do that by actually making yourself cook lots of meals at home.
Every time you cook a meal at home that you would have otherwise consumed at a restaurant (or takeout or delivery), you’re going to save a little money, but more importantly, you’re going to become a little more skilled in the kitchen.
Something like poaching eggs and making coffee, which might have seemed like an enormous chore in the morning, becomes something you can whip out while getting ready for the day. Something like beef stew might have seemed like a huge challenge, but soon you begin to realize that you can just chop up the ingredients the night before in about ten minutes, dump them all in a slow cooker in the morning, and come home to finished beef stew after work.
As that transition occurs, the intimidation factor of cooking at home will become lower and lower. It won’t seem overwhelming to come home and make even a fairly complicated meal. And, believe it or not, it will actually seem easier to just go home and make something simple like a pot of pasta and sauce than it will to go out to a restaurant.
Doing this transforms eating out (a relatively expensive endeavor) from a crutch that you have to rely on to get through the week to an occasional treat that you use to enjoy an unusual meal.
Don’t Waste Food
I’m often stunned at how much food many households simply waste. They’ll buy something at the store, let it sit in the fridge or on the counter until it goes bad, and then toss it. They’ll buy a food item, stick it in the pantry, and then when they discover it again they judge it to have “gone bad” and just toss it. They’ll pack up leftovers from a meal, stick them in the fridge, and discover them several days later with a thick coating of mold.
All of that is wasteful.
Here’s a new approach. At the start of each day, look in the fridge and see if there are any leftovers you can eat today instead of prepping a meal. Doing that turns one of your meals into a freebie and guarantees you won’t be tossing food in the trash. At the start of each week, when you’re planning meals (something we’ll get back to in a minute), look in your pantry and freezer and use that stuff as the basis for your meal plans. That way, you really don’t have to buy all that much at the grocery store. If you’re looking for a snack, look at what’s in the fresh food areas of your home – are there fresh fruits in the fruit bowl? Are there fresh veggies in the crisper?
Those steps alone take care of a lot of the food waste that a family undergoes. Remember, whenever you toss food in the trash, you’re literally throwing away money. That food cost something to get it into your home and now you’re just tossing it. Try to avoid doing that.
Scale Back Treats Until They Become Treats Again
Humans are routine-oriented creatures. We often fall into daily routines and weekly routines that we just repeat over and over again. Usually, we do them without thinking or feeling – they’re just the norm.
Every time you spend money as part of that daily routine or that weekly routine, you should be questioning whether or not it’s worth it. Are you really getting real value from that expense?
What you might notice if you ask that question seriously is that there are many things in people’s daily routines that aren’t really necessities at all. They’re basically treats. Think of a morning cup of coffee from Starbucks instead of from the coffee pot at work. Think of a regular stop at a store that caters to your hobby.
When you repeat such a thing often enough, it ceases to be a treat. It becomes routine. When something becomes routine, not only does it become a required expense in your life, it also loses a lot of the pleasure. It ceases to be a treat and just becomes “normal.”
One of the best “frugality secrets” out there is that life is actually much more enjoyable if you make your “normal” routine as inexpensive as possible and then spice it with treats with enough intervals in between so that they really feel like treats.
So take your daily stop at Starbucks and spread it out to become a weekly thing or even an every-other-week thing. Instead, get your morning coffee from the shared pot at work.
Here’s the weird part: you’ll actually start to find that drinking it once every week or two reinstitutes it as a treat. It will make the cup much more of a pleasure than before, when it had become a dull routine.
Make your routine bare-bones, then add treats sparingly so that they’re actual treats instead of just a boring routine. You’ll spend a lot less money and the treats will actually bring you more joy and pleasure than before.
Be Organized in Your Thinking and Planning Every Time You Would Spend Money
This one’s simple: whenever you are thinking of spending money, give it some advance thought and plan for it a little bit.
When you go to the grocery store, make a meal plan first and make a grocery list from that plan. That way, when you do go to the store, you have a list to follow.
When you go to the bookstore, give it some advance thought and decide on what exactly you’re looking for as precisely as you can. That way, when you go there, you’re not just wandering around.
Don’t put yourself in situations where you would spend money without thinking about it in advance, and that means far enough in advance that you’re not caught up in the moment of the purchase. Think about your grocery list at home and write it down rather than thinking about what you’ll buy on your way into the store.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t ever be spontaneous with your money. It just means that, if you’re going to be in a position to be spontaneous, you’ve already put some reasonable boundaries on it so that you’re not wrecking your finances by doing so.
For example, if I’m going out with friends on an unplanned evening, I’ll think about that evening in advance and take only enough cash to handle a reasonable evening out on the town rather than a credit card which can open the door to a huge amount of impulsive spending, far beyond what I can reasonably afford. If I take $40, that means I’ve thought about it in advance and I know that I can feel completely fine spending that $40 however I please and still know that everything in my life is still right on track.
Intentionally Move Your Hobby Time Away from Accumulating and Towards Doing Instead
When you’re passionate about a particular hobby, it’s easy to fall into the trap of accumulating stuff related to that hobby rather than actually doing things within that hobby.
For example, if you’re an avid book lover, you can often find yourself building up a huge book collection rather than actually, say, reading books.
This is a reflexive trap that many people fall into as their lives become busy. They begin to get a sense that they don’t have time for hobbies that they once loved, so to fight off that perception, they buy items instead as a substitute for that hobby time.
Here’s a much better approach: schedule blocks of time to actually practice your hobbies. Put them in your calendar first, before other appointments, and actually keep that time sacred.
Give yourself time to read if reading is your passion. Give yourself time to play board games if tabletop gaming is your passion.
That way, when you’re tempted to make a purchase, instead you can look at that block of time and think about the activities you’re actually going to do instead of the things you’re just accumulating.
You’ll find that when you do this, your desire to accumulate stuff actually melts away. For example, that time you might have spent thinking about all of the books you wish you had time to read instead becomes time you spend thinking about that book you’re going to read this weekend. Actually owning that book becomes secondary, and that makes things like stopping at the library much more appealing because the library is focused around using rather than accumulating.
Always Question Every Purchase
The last few entries are actually just specific instances of this overall strategy, which really sums up what a frugal mindset really is. You just question every single purchase.
That doesn’t mean that you cease spending money. It just means that when you’re about to spend money, you ask yourself critically whether this purchase really makes sense, and after you’ve made a purchase, you again reflect on that purchase critically and see whether it really made sense looking back on it.
A financially responsible mindset takes those situations and constantly runs them through their head. When you’re driving or sitting at the doctor’s office or whenever idle thoughts are running through your head, you just parse through a few recent buying decisions or some buying decisions that might be coming up. Do they make sense? Is there a better way to do it? Can I just borrow that item? Can I buy the store brand instead?
What you find is that you start to whittle away a lot of your expenses. You start to see unnecessary expenses as being unnecessary.
At the same time, what you find is that you’re not cutting away at the things that are really important to you. If you spend time considering a purchase, it really becomes clear after a bit which purchases really bring value into your life (and you don’t cut them) and which purchases do not.
That’s the purpose of such reflection. It cuts your spending down to the stuff that really matters.
Automate As Many Bills As You Can, Including Your Savings Plans
When you start paying down your debts and saving for the future, it’s easy to do it at first. You’re excited about the changes and if you’re being frugal, you have money to make those changes happen.
After a while, though, the newness wears off and when you’re making that choice to make a double debt payment or to put $100 away in savings, it becomes a lot harder to manually do that. It’s easy to put it off or justify not doing it.
The best way around that is to just automate it. Automate your large debt payment so that it happens automatically each month. Automate a transfer from your checking to your savings to build up an emergency fund.
That way, you don’t have to repeatedly think about your financial moves. It just happens. You don’t even give yourself a real opportunity to talk yourself out of them. It just happens, automatically.
Treat Your Career as an Opportunity, Not an Obstacle
Many people look at their career as drudgery. It’s something that life forces them to do and they hate every minute of it. They try to avoid actually doing much work and try to get by doing the minimun needed to keep their job.
That’s the wrong perspective, and it’s one that needs to be thoroughly replaced if you want to see lasting financial success.
Instead, see your job as an opportunity. Don’t live to work, work to live. The time you spend at work is time invested so that you can do the things you want in the other areas of your life. The time and energy you invest there is returned to you in terms of financial security and the ability to do all kinds of things in life.
Not only that, it’s an opportunity to open up even more freedom.
Look, if you’re going to be at work for eight hours anyway, why not use that time intentionally to maximize every possible dollar you can earn from your job? You can do that by simply taking on the difficult tasks. Look for situations to challenge yourself at work. Look for opportunities to get free education. Look for things that can bolster your resume and produce a great work review.
If those things aren’t appreciated in your workplace in terms of better pay, so what? They make for great resume material and you can always look for a job elsewhere when your resume starts to look really good. You may even find opportunities for independent work, like taking on a gig as a freelancer in your spare time or setting up a small business.
Just look at those hours you’re investing in your career as, at worst, an exchange for the things you have in life and, ideally, as an opportunity to improve your income and make your path to financial success move along that much faster.
Treat These Changes as Your New Normal
All of those changes seem doable on their own, but for most people, they’re different than the habits and routines that they currently have. These things represent a behavioral shift, a different way of approaching day-to-day life.
The thing is, it requires a permanent shift to these kinds of behaviors in order to make them work. These aren’t things that you try on when you think of them. These need to become statements that describe normal life for you – to do things differently than this needs to become the “strange” or unusual pattern.
Without that change in your sense of normal behavior, these changes won’t stick. They won’t become permanent alterations in your behavior and without that permanent change, they won’t bring about the financial results that you desire.
It’s like the old adage goes: the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. If you don’t change something – and by change, I mean change it permanently and establish it as the new normal in your life – then you’re going to keep getting the same results in life. There’s no way around it.
For some people, adopting a lot of changes at once is the best approach. For those people, making all of these changes in one swoop is what they need to do. For others, gradual change works best and they should focus on adopting new changes one at a time and letting them settle.
Remember, the key is to be on guard with these life changes until they truly become normal and the old way of doing things becomes strange. It isn’t until you wake up one morning and realize that your sense of normal now includes those things that financial success will really start pouring into your life with little apparent effort.
Final Thoughts
Here’s the take-home message from this article: the key changes that a person needs to make from the “typical American” lifestyle to one that builds wealth are not really radical changes. More than anything, they simply require introspection. They require reflecting on the choices we’re making and asking ourselves whether there’s a better way of doing things on decisions both big and small.
The path to financial success doesn’t begin with a bunch of misery. It begins with asking questions about why you’re spending each dollar that you’re spending. It begins with figuring out which things really matter to you and which things don’t matter as much. It begins with trying and discovering new things. It begins with building a few new skills that will make you more comfortable doing ordinary things like preparing a meal.
Those things come together over time to raise you up from living paycheck to paycheck. They raise you up so that you can pay off your debts surprisingly fast without giving up things you genuinely enjoy (and, believe it or not, often finding more space for doing things you enjoy).
It’s a path that begins not with radical change, but with asking lots of questions.
Are you ready? Let’s go.
The post Achieving Financial Success Without Extreme Frugality or a Huge Income appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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5 Ways to Earn Back Your Cyber Monday Splurge… Without Leaving the Couch
It’s incredibly easy to spend money sitting in front of a computer screen, especially on Cyber Monday. No Black Friday lines, no painful exchange of actual cash — not even the depressing sound of swiping your credit card.
But it can be even easier to make some of that money back in the same sitting!
Passive income is a great way to bolster your discretionary funds any time of year, but particularly during the winter holidays, when Americans spend an annual $600 billion.
Here are some effortless ways to generate a little bit of extra padding for your wallet while you’re shopping on Cyber Monday.
1. Watch Videos on Swagbucks
I just earned one Swag Buck (SB) — equal to about one cent — by learning how to use a muffin tin to make prosciutto egg cups on Swagbucks.
I’ll even save money on brunch this weekend and get fancy at home without facing perturbed looks from the waiter when I order a mimosa, minus the orange juice.
Swagbucks’ video topics range from food to celebrity gossip and comedy. And, you don’t necessarily need to watch the videos — just run them in a background tab while you go about your Cyber Monday business.
You can even mute them if you’re not interested in lipstick color recommendations or what to make for dinner.
You can earn about 2 SB every 10 minutes. Once you accrue 100 SB, you’ve earned a $1 gift card to Amazon, Walmart or Target (though you can only redeem rewards once you’ve banked at least 300 SB).
It doesn’t sound like much, but think about how much time you spend in front of your computer. Free money is free money — and it adds up.
I even ran two Swagbucks videos in two different background tabs — and doubled my earnings! Just make sure your computer can keep up, and be sure to click over into the tab from time to time to ensure the videos are still playing.
You usually have to watch a collection of three to four videos to earn an SB or two; I had some issues with getting them to play automatically.
Swagbucks can save you money in lots of other ways, too. Check out our primer on all the ways to put Swagbucks to work for you, and be sure to shop through Swagbucks on Cyber Monday!
2. Share Your Surfing Info With Market Research Panels
Free cash? There’s an app for that. Several, actually.
If you’re willing to share anonymous information about the way you use your computer and mobile devices, you could earn some significant rewards for absolutely no effort.
Smart Panel
Once you take a three-minute survey to ensure you qualify, you can download Smart Panel’s app, which runs quietly in the background of your PC, tablet or smartphone, collecting anonymous information about your surfing habits.
You’ll earn $5 for qualifying, $10 once you’ve had the app installed for two weeks, and then $5 for every month installed thereafter. You can choose to redeem your rewards for Amazon gift cards — or just get cold, hard cash via Paypal.
Nielsen Mobile Panel
The Nielsen mobile app works similarly to Smart Panel, and is available for both Android and Apple mobile devices.
Once you qualify, install the app on your phone. You’ll earn up to $50 per year in rewards — some of which are Amazon and Starbucks gift cards.
Cross Media Panel
Formerly known as Google Screenwise Panel, this one pays out varying amounts depending on how many devices you link.
If you regularly use a computer and a smartphone, you’ll get $4 to sign up, then $2 each week you use your device afterward. As long as you’re over the age of 13, you just need a Google account and can use Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox.
Got a tablet, too? Lucky you! You get a $6 sign-up bonus and $3 in passive income every week.
Click here to get started. When you’re ready to cash out, you can choose from a number of super-useable gift cards, from Visa to Domino’s (which I might totally go for. Sometimes pizza is worth more than cash.)
Media Insiders Panel
Here’s another! With Media Insiders Panel, you’ll earn $5 per month, per device — and you can link up to three. Plus, you’ll get loyalty bonuses up to four times per year if you leave it installed.
MobileXpression
Take the survey to find out if you qualify for this market research panel. It’s available for iPhones, Android devices and other devices, including tablets.
If you qualify and install it, you’re guaranteed to earn prizes, and you’ll be automatically entered in the “Weekly Winners” sweepstakes. Goodies given out include iPads, Kindles, digital cameras and more.
3. Let Viggle Listen In
Do you play music or watch TV in the background while you do your Cyber Monday shopping?
If you’re willing to share your info, Viggle pays you points when you allow it to listen in to your music or TV show. The app’s available for Android and Apple devices.
Users have cashed in their points for over $14 million in rewards to date, according to Viggle’s website. Choose from best-seller gift cards like Amazon, Best Buy and Sephora, or even once-in-a-lifetime experiences like a trip to see the finale of “The Voice”!
4. View Beautiful Ads on Your Android Lock Screen
Hey Android users: If you let any of these apps display ads on your smartphone, you’ll earn cash rewards just for using your phone. (Sorry, Apple fans; you can’t use any of these apps yet.)
They all work in about the same way: Install the app, let it populate your lock screen with visually appealing ads relevant to your interests, and rake in the cash.
Although your earnings are tied to unlocking your phone, these apps have algorithms to detect fraudulent usage — so locking and unlocking your phone all day won’t magically make you a millionaire.
Adme
Once you rack up $10, you can request your rewards deposit through Paypal. Check out the app here.
Fronto
This app rewards you in points, which you trade for cash — about 2,500 points for $1.
The app store description says Fronto is trying to pay $20 to each user each month — not bad for something you literally just set and forget!
Slidejoy
One hundred Slidejoy Carats equals $1, and you can get paid after you hit just 200 Carats. You can even choose to donate them directly to charity!
5. Search With Bing
Bing will pay you to use its web search, instead of a particularly doodly one you may use by default.
So when you’re scouring the Internet for the best Cyber Monday deals, make sure to do it through Bing Rewards. You can get $5 gift cards to vendors like Amazon, Chipotle and Starbucks.
Your Turn: Do you know any awesome ways to earn passive income on Cyber Monday?
Disclosure: We have a serious Taco Bell addiction around here. The affiliate links in this post help us order off the dollar menu. Thanks for your support!
Jamie Cattanach is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder and a native Floridian. She’s passionate about learning, literature, chocolate and finding ways to live the good life as cost-effectively as possible. You can wave hi to @jamiecattanach on Twitter.
The post 5 Ways to Earn Back Your Cyber Monday Splurge… Without Leaving the Couch appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Can a CD Loan Help You Build Credit or Tap Emergency Cash?
Here’s an approach to establishing, building, or repairing credit that few people are likely aware of: a CD loan.
More specifically, the process usually involves opening a secured credit card with a bank or credit union, which is backed by your certificate of deposit (CD). But that’s just one of the potential uses for what’s often referred to as a CD loan.
Such loans are also an option to consider when you need to tap some quick cash, and other sources of funding, such as a traditional loan or credit card, are simply not available.
The downside, however, is that fewer and fewer banks offer CD loans these days because the financial institution typically does not make much money on them. Not to mention that, in the age of low interest rates and high-yield online savings accounts, very few people even have CDs anymore, according to financial experts. What’s more, such loans are capped by the amount of cash in the CD.
“There’s a lot of limitations to them,” says Scott Vance, of North Carolina-based Trisuli Financial Advising. “But this is one of the possible tools you could consider if you need funding for something.”
Here are the key things to know about CD loans.
What Is a CD Loan?
First, for those who may be unclear, a CD is a time deposit account that involves tying up a sum of money for a fixed term, during which the money earns interest. Typically, the longer you agree not to touch the money, the higher the interest rate you’ll earn.
CD terms can be a month, three months, six months, or as long as three to five years. And here’s the key point – there’s a penalty for removing the money before that term has expired.
A CD loan however, allows you to borrow against the money you’ve deposited, without penalty.
Why Use a CD Loan?
There are various reasons to consider this approach to obtaining quick cash. Vance says he has seen clients opt for a CD loan when a sudden, unexpected need for money arises.
“When a client has a large amount of cash tied up in a CD, rather then totally cash out the CD and pay penalties, they can take a loan against that CD,” he explains.
This approach avoids the early withdrawal fees associated with a CD, yet still provides you with the emergency cash needed.
However, it’s important to note that the bank will charge interest on the CD loan. So it’s a good idea to be clear regarding how much interest you’ll be paying and whether this approach really makes the most financial sense.
“I had one client who had a lot of money tied up in three- to five-year CDs. And the roof on their house got damaged and needed to be repaired. They needed more cash to pay for the repairs then they had on hand,” explains Vance. “The interest rate for the CD loan in that case was less then a signature loan, or even a credit card.”
Using a CD Loan to Build Credit
Yet another use for CDs is building or repairing your credit. In this scenario, the money in the CD is used as collateral for a secured credit card or line of credit from a bank or credit union.
Ronit Rogoszinksi, a New York-based certified financial planner and founder of Women & Wealth Solutions, used a CD loan to help her college-bound son open his first credit card and establish credit. She describes it as a simple process that made sense for a teen who did not yet have any credit history.
“When he went off to college, we wanted him to have a credit card,” explains Rogoszinksi. “He applied for a major credit card and was declined.”
Rogoszinksi took matters into her own hands by opening a $500 CD at a small, regional bank that offered secured credit cards. The bank put the money into an 18-month CD, which was used as collateral for the secured credit card provided to her son.
This approach served several purposes, says Rogoszinksi. It allowed her son to establish a credit record, while also teaching him that there would be a penalty if the credit card was used inappropriately – in the form of his parents losing their $500.
“If you either have no credit or you have a child going off to college, and you don’t want them getting a regular credit card, this is a good option,” says Rogoszinksi.
Like other financial advisors, Rogoszinksi notes that few banks offer CD loans or lines of credit anymore. The most likely places to find them, she says, is regional banks and credit unions.
But the bottom line is that you still must come up with the money to put into the bank as collateral, if you don’t already have a CD established. And before taking this approach, make sure a CD loan is your best option.
“Good luck finding a bank still does them,” says Rogoszinksi. “And if you do find one, make sure to read the terms of the loan very, very carefully… A CD might earn 1% on a good day. If you’re going to borrow against it, find out what the fees are. And if it ends up being a loan that charges 10%, don’t do it. It’s not worth it.”
Related Articles
- How to Find the Best CD Rates
- How Long Does it Take to Build Credit from Scratch?
- Best Secured Credit Cards Right Now
The post Can a CD Loan Help You Build Credit or Tap Emergency Cash? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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الجمعة، 25 نوفمبر 2016
Giving Books for the Holidays? Get $10 Off Your Purchase This Weekend
We’re a bunch of bookworms here at The Penny Hoarder HQ.
We have a book club. We even have a spreadsheet of our favorite books on the off chance a co-worker can’t decide what to read next.
So we’re pretty excited about this Amazon deal: Spend $25 on books this weekend and get $10 off.
It’s probably the easiest sale you’ll score all weekend.
How to Get This Amazon Discount on Books
Amazon’s book prices are already rock-bottom, but this deal rewards those buying in bulk — either for yourself or to stock up on gifts for your family.
All you have to do is add at least $25 of print books to your Amazon cart.
Enter promo code HOLIDAYBOOK at checkout and you’ll see $10 of your tab vanish. Poof! Even cheaper books.
The offer is good until 3 a.m. ET on Nov. 28, which means the deal expires before Cyber Monday sales drop. But who knows what kind of surprises Amazon might have up its sleeve this weekend?
You can’t combine this discount with any other offers on the site, but you know how Amazon prices can change in a blink. It might be worth sticking all the books you want in your cart and sitting on this offer until Sunday afternoon.
Your Turn: What book are you planning to read next?
Disclosure: A toast to savings! Thanks for allowing us to place affiliate links in this post.
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder.
The post Giving Books for the Holidays? Get $10 Off Your Purchase This Weekend appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Regret Black Friday and Cyber Monday impulse buys? Here's what to do
The majority of Moneywise.co.uk users plan to spend up to £500 on Christmas, our latest poll results revealed. But has the temptation of buying bargains on Black Friday and Cyber Monday taken you over your spending limit?
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Buy a Gift Card, Get Free Cheesecake? Yes, Please!
Know someone who loves the endless menu — and piled-high desserts — at The Cheesecake Factory?
It’s OK if that person is you.
Don’t head to your local cheesecake paradise without checking out this deal.
When you buy a $25 gift card this weekend, you’ll get free cheesecake.
How to Get Free Cheesecake From The Cheesecake Factory
For every $25 you spend on physical or electronic gift cards between Nov. 25 and Nov. 28, you’ll receive two eSlice of Joy Cards.
Your eSlice of Joy Cards are good for one slice of cheesecake or layer cake. You can only redeem one card per guest per visit, but you do have a long window to use them: Jan. 1 to March 31, 2017.
(Grabbing a slice of cheesecake would be a great New Year’s Day activity with a friend, by the way. Call me.)
If you’re planning to buy Cheesecake Factory gift cards for special people this holiday season, you may as well get a couple of free slices, too.
Who in their right mind would turn down cheesecake? No one.
Your Turn: What’s your favorite type of cheesecake? (“All of them” is an acceptable answer.)
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder. She doesn’t think you should mess with classic plain cheesecake.
The post Buy a Gift Card, Get Free Cheesecake? Yes, Please! appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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How to Start Blogging if You Fell off the Wagon a Long Time Ago
People always ask me how I’ve built up such a huge audience for my blogs.
Part of my secret sauce? I’ve been blogging for well over a decade now.
But not everyone has been blogging for years, and I get that. Some of you may have started a blog years ago but abandoned it.
I can relate. There were several times when I almost quit blogging. I was scared it wouldn’t pan out for me. And it does take time. But I stuck with it, and I’m so happy I did.
And here’s the best part: It’s not too late for you to start blogging.
I know what you’re thinking: “There are a million blogs in my niche. Why should I even try to compete with them?”
There are two main reasons. First, you bring something unique to the table. No one else has experienced everything you have. And besides, your blog should be different from your competition’s, not a carbon copy.
Second, start seeing competition as a good thing. Competition means the niche is popular and profitable. You can actually leverage that competition to get more views on your blog.
If you fell off the blogging wagon a while back, you can (and should!) jump back on. Here’s how to get (re)started.
1. Pick up where you left off
Here’s something that will relieve you: You don’t have to start from scratch.
If your old blog is still up, pay it a visit. It’s probably a barren wasteland, but you can salvage some useful scraps from it.
If you want to blog in the same niche you did before, I highly recommend repurposing content. It’s one of the easiest and most efficient ways to get extra mileage out of existing material.
If you still have access to any old material, pull it out and dust it off. Chances are it’s still relevant to your niche. Or maybe it just needs a few edits to make it shine again.
Assuming you remember (or can retrieve) your login information, you can use this blog to restart if you want. If you still own the domain name (and if you want to blog in the same niche), there’s no reason not to reuse your old blog. Edit your content, give it a redesign, and you’ll be off to the races.
But if you do opt for a shiny new blog, you can simply transfer your content over.
Either way, you’ll take advantage of what you did in the past to make the future easier.
2. Make a big comeback
You want to re-enter the blogosphere with a bang.
There are two ways you can do this.
The first approach is to jump right back into the game and start blogging regularly. If you’ve got a lot of motivation and ideas, this could be a good approach for you.
For example, you could follow in Seth Godin’s footsteps and start blogging every day.
Of course, your posts should be longer. But as an example of consistency, Seth’s blog stands head and shoulders above the rest.
But you don’t have to blog every day—you just have to blog consistently. Otherwise, there’s no point.
Decide how many posts you’ll publish per week, and get to it. You absolutely have to stick to your schedule if you want to come back on a strong note.
The second approach—and the one I wished I’d taken when I started blogging—is to stockpile your ideas before you blog. This takes a little more time, but it gives you a little more flexibility.
If you choose this, you’ll need to do two things:
First, get to writing! You’ll want to have as much content as possible when you officially start up your blog again. There’s no hard-and-fast guideline here, but about 3-4 weeks of content will give you a huge advantage.
Second, create an editorial calendar to schedule your posts. I recommend reading this post from HubSpot that shows how you can use Google Calendar to set up your editorial calendar.
Like I said, I wish I had taken this approach when I started blogging. There were many days when I was racking my brain for ideas, and a lot of them turned out to be crap.
But if you have the motivation to get out there and start right now, do it! The most important thing is to make a plan and stick to it.
3. Build (or rebuild) your audience
You may have heard this line repurposed from the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”
But that’s not true for blogging.
You have to build your blog and your audience.
You might have built an audience in the past. If you have, don’t be shy about leveraging that. If you know who read your blog, drop them a line about your return. You can also go through your old blog’s comments to see who was checking out your content.
And if you have an email list, that’s even better. Send out an email saying “I’m back!” More than likely, those subscribers will be glad to flock to your new blog.
In fact, getting your audience involved is one of the best things you can do at this point. Ask for feedback, and use that to improve your new blog.
The blog team at Unbounce did exactly this. They took a 2-week hiatus and asked readers to send in their thoughts:
Even a simple offer like this goes a long way in your readers’ minds. So, if you’ve still got a list floating around, use it!
But what happens if you have no audience at all?
It’s time to build one.
I’ll describe a couple of my favorite methods here, but I highly recommend you check out Quick Sprout’s Complete Guide to Building Your Blog Audience.
First, get a social media game plan. Lots of bloggers start out by relying on SEO, but the truth is that good SEO takes years to develop. Driving traffic through social media will help you out in the short run.
You can either buy ads or build your social profiles from the ground up. If you have the resources, I recommend a combination of both. Don’t rely 100% on ads—get involved with the community and share value with others. That’s how you’ll get people to visit your site in droves.
Second, use outreach. Outreach happens when you contact people asking them to share, promote, or look at your posts.
Reach out to your own network initially. Since you have personal connections, you can be somewhat informal here.
Next, reach out to the big names in your field—the influencers. But here’s the catch: In order to catch the attention of influencers, you’ll need top-notch content.
One of my favorite techniques for creating top-notch content is the Skyscraper Technique. Basically, you take an existing blog post, improve upon it, and send it to influencers. (You can read more about this on Brian Dean’s blog Backlinko.)
When you’re contacting influencers, you’ll need a solid email script. Here’s a good one to use:
Personalize this, and send it to your target influencers. If you’ve put some hard work into your post to make it an ultimate resource, you’ll likely get some responses.
4. Do your research (again)
You might have done lots of research when you started blogging. Now, you need to do more research.
You want to be at the forefront of your niche. You need to know the latest trends and ideas so you don’t fall behind.
Most importantly, take some time to size up your competition. What’s changed over the years? What types of content are your competitors posting and why?
Use this information to find your angle. You have a few options here:
- Make an existing angle better
- Add your personal experience/opinion/stories
- Combine two angles to make something new (e.g., 7 Valuable Marketing Lessons Pokémon Go Has Taught Us)
Whatever you decide, make sure your angle stands out in some way. You either need to be a super high-quality or a super unique resource (ideally, you should aim to be both).
5. Build your email list
There’s a ton of truth behind the statement “it’s all in the list.”
That’s because an email list is hands-down the best way to grow and promote your blog.
Earlier, I mentioned that if you still have an email list from an old blog, you should use it. But you can’t stop there. You have to build your list every day.
List building is a long-term process, so don’t get discouraged early on. If you keep at it, you will see the results.
The best way to start is to optimize your site for capturing emails. Yes, that means popups! You might hate them, but they work.
You can have a full-screen popup like the one Ramit Sethi from I Will Teach You To Be Rich uses:
Or you can have a scrollbox like the one we use on Crazy Egg:
Or you can use one of my favorite tools, Hello Bar:
There are a lot of options, so look around and choose carefully.
You should also consider creating a fantastic lead magnet to get more subscribers.
But I have to emphasize something here: a good lead magnet isn’t enough. It should be so good that your subscribers would be shocked to see you giving it away.
Conclusion
Even if you gave up all hopes of creating a successful blog, it’s not too late.
In fact, blogging is easier than ever. You’ll still need to invest some serious time and money, but there are more resources available now than ever before.
If you make a plan and stick to it, you can build a huge audience like I did.
You want to know one of my secrets? I’m nobody special.
You’re probably thinking, “Yeah, right, Mr. Huge Blogger.” But it’s true. All I did was follow some simple rules that anyone can follow and use to succeed, and that includes you.
Now, it took me years to really succeed with blogging. But I didn’t do everything right when I started out. In fact, I spent years recovering from some rookie mistakes I made.
But you don’t have to fall into the same trap. You can get off to a strong start, do things the right way, and find blogging success a lot sooner.
So, if your blog is lying around collecting dust, pick it up and brush it off. You might be surprised at the results.
Are you going to start blogging again? Or for the first time?
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Annuity providers to be forced to offer price comparison
Annuity providers will have to inform their customers how much they could gain from shopping around and switching provider before they purchase an annuity, city regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said.
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WIN! A copy of BMoneywize
If you’d like an alternative to playing traditional Trivial Pursuits, Cluedo or Monopoly with your family this festive season, consider BMoneywize.
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College Students: Would You Live With a Senior Citizen to Save $7,000?
Would you give up part of your college experience if doing so offered major savings?
Room and board at New York University usually costs about $14,000. But a new program aims to cut that bill in half for some students.
The ideal candidate: Mature. Open to new experiences. Willing to live with the elderly.
Yep.
Want to Live with a Senior… Citizen?
NYU is launching a pilot program to house 10 juniors, seniors and graduate students in the spare bedrooms of senior citizens who live near campus.
Senior citizens will receive income from renting out private bedrooms, while students will get a $7,000 reduction on their housing bills.
The New York Post notes a similar program has been successful in Chicago, where participating students told the Post their senior roommates were less stressful to live with than previous college-age roommates.
The discount on room and board can mean more time to focus on schoolwork instead of picking up a dozen side hustles. The Chicago students get their housing for free in exchange for 20 hours per week assisting the senior citizens in their building.
Is This Housing Deal Right for You?
It’s an amazing deal, but we can’t assume that living with a senior citizen won’t come with its own stressors.
An older roommate may not mind if you stay up all night watching Netflix, but they may frown on you stumbling in and slamming kitchen cabinets at 2 a.m.
They may be down to order Domino’s once a week, but not every single night.
You might not even need quarters for laundry! But please do your laundry often enough that you won’t need to hog the machines for two days straight once you’re out of clean underwear.
Let’s be real here. Get matched with the right senior citizen, and you’ll probably have a heck of a lot of fun while you’re studying.
Your Turn: Would you live with a senior citizen to save money on college housing?
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at the Penny Hoarder.
The post College Students: Would You Live With a Senior Citizen to Save $7,000? appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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We Asked Small Business Owners How to Get Their Best Cyber Monday Deals. Here’s What They Said…
If Black Friday belongs to the big-box retailers, then Cyber Monday was made for small, independent businesses — on the web, of course.
Cyber Monday deals abound in businesses of all sizes. But smaller retailers, including some that sell primarily online, often reserve this day for their biggest sales of the year.
It’s up to you, dear shopper, to know how to get them.
If you often find yourself cruising Etsy shops for hours at a time, or can’t stop scrolling through the offerings on your favorite specialty designer’s website, now’s the time to study up on how to get the best deals on Cyber Monday.
Resist Impulse Buying
The first rule of Cyber Monday: Don’t spend all your cash before the big day.
Autumn months are prime time for craft shows, festivals and holiday markets, all designed to get you in the shopping mood.
But while special events and markets are great for scoping out wares and testing them out up close, you can guarantee everything’s going to be full price.
If you don’t need that knit hat or tote bag right away, take a business card for the shop instead. It’ll undoubtedly have their social media info and an address for their online shop or Etsy storefront. Finding the shops you like is the first step to extra holiday shopping success.
The next few tips ensure you’ll get the best deal once you’re a fan.
Sign Up for Email Newsletters
Nobody wants more emails to sort through, but I promise they’re worth it for the Cyber Monday deals alone.
If a shop offers advance notice of a sale, it’s going to share it with its email list first. And sometimes, a shop will maximize its sales by running a discount from Black Friday all the way through Cyber Monday, for a long weekend of deals.
“I usually run my Cyber Monday sale from Black Friday to the Tuesday afterward, just to catch any stragglers,” Noelle Burke, owner of apparel and home decor shop Xenotees, said.
Follow Shops on Social Media
The most current way to get info about sales is through your favorite social media platforms. Most online shops are on Twitter and Facebook, and many have joined Instagram to display their work, along with discount details.
Some shops offer sales spontaneously, meaning you won’t get notice of a sale until it’s already in full swing. These are called flash sales.
“We don’t give much notice for sales; instead, I announce it the day of and try to post reminders at least once a day,” said Becky Waddell of natural beauty retailer Be Clean.
Since we aren’t big enough to have people anticipate a big annual event, we just like to establish the norm that we have promotions, you just have to watch out for them and keep an eye on what’s going on.
Be Clean’s Instagram feed is often both the first place you can find out about new products, as well as discounts and promotions.
If You Don’t See a Sale, Ask
Websites typically advertise their sales on their homepages, but great deals aren’t always evident — especially when a storefront is on Etsy, where there’s limited space to advertise such specials.
Illustrator Katie Vaz primarily sells her greeting cards and prints on Etsy. “Honestly, [promotions] typically don’t lead to more sales than normal,” she said of big holiday specials.
I use promo codes, and even if I have more orders that weekend because of holiday shoppers, only a small percentage actually use the code.
Burke agreed, noting even during increased sales periods, customers have used her coupon codes sparingly. “I think it’s because it is sort of the official launch of the holiday shopping season, and people get excited to make purchases,” she said.
So before you cash out on that cart filled with goodies, double-check you’re not missing coupon codes or free shipping offers.
Don’t see a coupon code? There’s no harm in asking for one to make sure you aren’t missing a deal.
Burke, for example, noted her Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale is the only time she ever marks down all her popular pillowcases. She stays close to her computer on Cyber Monday so she can answer shopper questions through her site’s live-chat feature.
Not sure how to ask for a discount? Just use the common sense and manners you would in a retail store.
Terrible way to ask: “Can I have a promo code?”
Excellent way to ask: “I love your handmade hair barrettes and have been following you on Etsy for a few months. I wanted to check to see if you’re offering any discount codes for Cyber Monday. Would love to stock up for the holidays!”
The worst a seller can tell you is no, they’re not offering a sale. Either way, they’ll probably be grateful you’ve been checking out their items.
Your Turn: What are your tips for scoring a deal on Cyber Monday? Share them in the comments!
Lisa Rowan is a writer, editor and podcaster living in Baltimore.
The post We Asked Small Business Owners How to Get Their Best Cyber Monday Deals. Here’s What They Said… appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Flexible Holiday Gift Ideas for a Frugal Person
Around this time of the year, I get messages and emails from folks who are struggling to figure out gifts for the frugal person in their life. What do they get for the person who is very careful with their money and doesn’t seem to want anything?
It can be a real challenge. I know that people in my life sometimes struggle for gift ideas for me (they’ve told me so), mostly because the handful of obvious interests I do have are fairly niche interests and they don’t know what to buy within those interests, and I also seem completely disinterested in more typical “men’s gifts.”
How do you buy a gift for a person with such a frugal mindset? Last year, I wrote a gift guide for frugal people that included a bunch of specific ideas:
A Slow Cooker
Freezer and Oven-Safe Storage Containers
A Chef’s Knife
A Knife Sharpening Stone
A Cast Iron Skillet
A Safety Razor (and a Box of Blades)
Good Rechargeable Batteries (and a Recharging Kit)
Bed Sheets
Good Food and Beverage Items
Specific High Quality Tools
Specific Camping or Hiking Gear
Homemade Items
While those are all great gift ideas, they’re also somewhat impersonal. Unless a person happens to be into a specific area of interest or actually needs one of these items, these gifts might very well end up unused.
This year, I’m offering a different approach, one that takes into account the person you’re giving the gift to. Here are some ideas that work well as gifts for frugal people.
A gift card that’s very focused on their hobby. Generally, I think gift cards are a poor gift because they come across as “unthoughtful,” but if you choose a gift card that’s very targeted toward their hobby, it can actually turn into a very nice gift.
A frugal person is typically someone who is very careful about spending money on their hobby. They find ways to enjoy their hobbies with minimal expense, even though there may be items that they could buy that would enhance their hobby. For example, an avid book reader (of which I am one) would enjoy a gift card to an independent bookstore.
Why not just give them a gift card to, say, Amazon? A frugal person is going to look at that and think of utility. They’re going to use a general-purpose card on general-purpose expenses. They’ll use an Amazon card to stock up on toothpaste.
Using myself as an example, a gift card to a niche retailer that focuses on the board gaming hobby, like Coolstuffinc, is a great gift because it encourages me to actually get something related to my hobby rather than using it on a normal shopping trip as I would with a gift card to, say, Target. Knowing about this hobby of mine is something that anyone who spent much time around me could easily figure out.
A well-researched reliable quality upgrade to an item they use regularly. If you’re close to the person that you’re giving the gift to, spend some time looking at the items that they actually use all the time. Are any of them worn out? Are any of them cheap or cheaply made? If you can identify such an item, spend some time researching a truly well-made reliable upgrade for that item and you have yourself a stellar gift.
The important thing to remember is that thoughtfulness, time, and research is what really matters here. If you’re looking for a quick gift solution, this is not the way to go. Instead, if you’re willing to spend a few hours really researching a gift and then spending a little to get a truly well made and reliable upgrade item for that person, you’re going to get that happy response that people always want when they give a gift.
Again, using myself as an example, I would love a really well made paring knife. I’ve had a Victorinox one for a long time, which is a great “bang for the buck” option, but an extremely well-crafted paring knife designed to last practically forever would be great. I cut up vegetables constantly with my paring knife. Again, someone who spent much time in my home probably saw me with a paring knife and may have heard me mention such a thing.
A consumable gift of a food item that they enjoy. Think of the foods and beverages that your recipient typically enjoys. Do they enjoy wine? Craft beer? Cured meats? Cheese? What do you actually see them eating or drinking?
Take those things you’ve actually witnessed that person enjoying and run with it. If you’ve seen that person enjoying craft beer, for example, head down to a craft beer store or a liquor store and ask for some recommendations. The same is true with wine. If you’ve seen them enjoy cured meats, stop at a butcher shop and pick up some jerky or salami for them.
The key is to base this gift on things you’ve actually seen that person enjoy. Don’t think about what you might like or what you think an average person would enjoy. Try hard to think about what they would enjoy.
For myself, a six pack or a bomber of unusual craft beer would always make a good gift, as would a soup mix or an unusual type of cheese.
An “experience” gift. An “experience” gift is a gift that leads directly to the person doing something rather than owning something. For example, tickets to a concert would be an experience gift, as would a certificate to take a cooking class.
Much as with the hobby gifts above, these types of gifts line up very well if they’re chosen with that person’s particular hobbies and interests in mind. If you got a pair of football tickets for a die-hard football fan, for example, then that gift would be cherished; for a non-football fan, though, they would become items to quietly sell on StubHub.
For me, for example, tickets to a baseball game would provide a great “experience gift,” as would a trip to a gaming convention.
A membership card or season pass that grants free entry to a place that might interest them. This is something of a continuation on the idea of an “experience” gift, but a season pass or a membership card to a particular attraction that might merit repeat visits can make for a really fantastic gift.
Again, this works best when you take that person’s interests in mind. If you have a friend who always wants to visit an art museum when they visit a city, then a membership to the local art museum (if they don’t have one) is a good gift idea, but for someone who shows no interest in art, it’s not the best idea.
For myself as an example, an annual family pass to the Living History Farms would be a wonderful example.
What if they might already have it? Think of a way to find out that information in a conversation. There are many ways to do this. You can ask them for advice on how they prepare vegetables, for example, if you want to get a good look at their knives. You can call them up and ask about art museums in the city and then figure out if they have a pass to the best one pretty quickly.
What if I don’t have a strong sense of their interests? This can often be true if you’re buying a gift for a relative that you don’t see very often, or if your interests don’t overlap all that much. You might literally have no idea what that person’s interests are, even if you love and care for that person.
The easiest way to figure this out is to simply browse their social media profiles. Almost everyone alludes to at least some of their interests on social media, so you can usually figure out at least a thing or two that they’re interested in on there.
If that area of interest alone isn’t enough, take that area of interest and incorporate it into a conversation with your gift-giving target. Get them to talk a little about their particular interest and pay attention. You’ll almost always find something to work with in their words.
In the end, the thing that matters to a frugal person isn’t stuff, it’s a bit of your thought and time. A frugal person is far more likely to appreciate a cheap but well-considered gift than a showy and expensive but ill-fitting gift. Put in a little bit of thought and you’re almost never going to go wrong.
The post Flexible Holiday Gift Ideas for a Frugal Person appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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It’s Time to Give Up on Your iPhone 4. Here’s How to Upgrade for Cheap
Do you rush out to get the newest phone model as soon as it’s released? Or are you a Penny Hoarder, waiting until the last minute to embrace the newest technology?
If you’re holding on to an old iPhone, it may be time to give in.
Apple recently discontinued support for the iPhone 4 and 4S models, so if something happens to the old model you’re clutching, you may be out of luck.
But the iPhone 7 is ridiculously expensive, aside from that pesky headphone jack drama. What’s a hesitant shopper to do?
Get a new phone. Just… an older new phone. You can order a pre-owned phone and save hundreds over a brand-new, current-model iPhone.
Here’s the deal on older or gently used iPhones you can get from your cellular carrier:
1. AT&T
AT&T only offers the iPhone 6, 7, and SE models new, but from time to time, its online shop offers certified pre-owned iPhones.
In August, it listed a few new iPhone 5 and 6 versions in the $500 to $600 range. Instead of an installment plan or upgrade special you might get on a new phone, you have to pay upfront for these used models..
2. Sprint
Alongside newer models, Sprint still offers new iPhone 5s 16GB models for $300 or 24 monthly installments of $12.50 per month.
3. T-Mobile
Check T-Mobile’s site for certified pre-owned iPhones. The iPhone SE is also available new for $399.
4. Verizon
Verizon offers certified pre-owned iPhone 5s 16GB for $264 and 32GB 5c for $240. As you might imagine, these phones go quickly, so you may have to check back often before there’s a phone in stock.
But those prices are less stressful than the $529 — or more — you would spend on a new iPhone 6s from Verizon.
What about other places to shop? If you have a hard time trusting eBay or Craigslist, you can shop for a used phone online that will actually last you to your next (eventual) upgrade.
5. Gazelle
Unlocked and major-carrier iPhone 5 models start at just $169. Meanwhile, iPhone 6 models start at about $328.
Just make sure to get the amount of memory you need — there are many more 16GB models available than phones with larger memory.
6. GameStop
You might be surprised to learn that, along with video games and consoles, GameStop also sells used smartphones. I spotted an 8GB iPhone 4S for $99, but the site also lists 5S, 6 and SE models from about $250.
7. Swappa
Swappa is a person-to-person marketplace like eBay, but each listing is reviewed by staff to fight fraud and verify accuracy.
The site offers models all the way back to the iPhone 3, but even better is the link to easily view phones priced under $200.
8. Glyde
Unlocked and major-carrier phones on Glyde start at $151 for a 16GB iPhone 5S.
Like Gazelle, this site has a lot of 16GB options, so if you want more memory, you’ll have to pay a bit more.
Your Turn: How have you saved money on your iPhone?
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder. She bought a used iPhone 6 one week before the iPhone 7 was announced. (She’s not patient at all.)
The post It’s Time to Give Up on Your iPhone 4. Here’s How to Upgrade for Cheap appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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I Work From Home… and I Have Twin Toddlers. Here’s How I Manage Everything
Even in the most ideal of situations, working from home can be a challenge. It’s easy to get distracted by tasks like laundry, dishes, cooking and even home improvement projects that have been on your to-do list for months or even years.
Add in having twin toddlers and a husband who’s a busy physician, and it’s hard to imagine successfully working from home. However, that’s what I’ve been doing as a self-employed business owner for almost three years.
It doesn’t always run smoothly and my house always seems to be a disaster, but I’m much happier in my work and life now than I’ve ever been.
I wanted to work from home because I envisioned a life where I would spend more time with my family. I knew people could make money blogging, so I started a blog in 2010, planning to use that income to help me work from home.
After three years of blogging and freelancing, and pregnant with my twins, I was ready to take the leap from my teaching job at a university to working from home. I loved my job, but I was ready to take the leap.
Now that I’ve been in business for a few years and my children are older, I can share what I learned along the way. Here are some tips on how I work at home successfully.
1. Do Not Multitask
I once thought multitasking was the only way to get everything done for my business and my family.
One time, shortly after my twins were born, I found myself sitting on the couch with a mountain of laundry, rocking a baby seat with my foot and trying to write a blog post all at the same time.
I eventually finished all of those tasks, but none of them were my best work because I wasn’t focused on one thing at a time. Over time, I’ve found I produce higher-quality work and deliver better parenting when I focus on one task at a time.
Because I couldn’t afford child care when I first started working from home, I could only work when my twins were napping or after they’d gone to bed for the night.
I now have someone come to my house four days a week to help with my children, which brings me to my next point.
2. Hire Help When You Can
As much as I want to be the perfect wife, mother and entrepreneur, I’ve realized that I can’t give 100% to all three things at the same time while maintaining my sense of self. This is why I finally decided to hire help for my business and my daily tasks.
I spent months working at home while caring for my children before I hired a mother’s helper. I was overwhelmed, working mostly during the twins’ naps, and I knew I needed help.
When I realized I could bill more work in an hour than it would cost to hire a mother’s helper, I knew it was a good financial decision. With a babysitter helping me care for my children, it was easier for me to focus on my business.
My finances were tight at first, but over time, I’ve earned more money because I could work uninterrupted.
I used the time my babysitter was watching my children to approach new clients and negotiate new deals. It definitely paid off: It wasn’t long before my income increased by $500 a month, then $1,000 a month and beyond.
I also started outsourcing parts of my business, like social media management and my overflowing inbox, so I could more effectively use my time.
It was far faster, and thus cheaper, to hire an expert to take on some tasks for me. When you start outsourcing, you must be mindful of the cost versus the benefit. But when you do it right, outsourcing can help you grow your business and spend less time working.
3. Carve Out an Office Space
While I have an office space now, it’s actually the first time I’ve had one. Before, I carved out space in my bedroom for a desk and all of my business supplies.
I still occasionally work from other places, such as my kitchen table and living room couch, but in general, I am better focused and can work more efficiently in my office space.
Instead of a nook in my bedroom, I now have the whole upper floor of my house, which is a finished attic, so I can really stretch out. Though I’m enjoying having a lot more square footage for my business, I was able to run it successfully out of just a little nook in my bedroom.
The key is to dedicate a space just for your work, whether it’s a small desk or an office, away from distractions. It’s near impossible to get any good work done with kids trying to sit in your lap and type with you.
4. Take Time Off
You can’t be all about work all the time. I work anywhere from five to eight hours a day, and I take Friday, Saturday and Sunday off both to spend time with my family and to give my mind a rest — it’s a great schedule.
Whenever I start to feel stressed or unmotivated during a work day, I like to take a short break for 15 minutes or so to clear my mind and take care of myself.
One of the ways I do this is by taking a walk. My dog loves to come with me, and getting out of the house is refreshing, even if it’s only a quick walk around the block. Other times, I take a shorter walk just to show my twins some love or get a snack from the fridge.
While these little breaks can be a nice way to muddle through your workday and get things done, eventually you have to shut down your computer for a longer period of time so you can rest and recuperate.
When I’m done working for the day, I shut my computer down so I’m not tempted to re-open it.
I also try to avoid screen time, like checking emails or looking at Facebook on my phone, after I’ve shut down and stopped working for the day. My kids know I’m not paying attention to them when I’m on my phone, so to really be there and maintain a semblance of work-life balance, I try to put it in another room when I’m watching them.
5. Develop Good Productivity Habits
Staying focused can be a major challenge for people who work from home.
Here are some of my favorite strategies for boosting concentrating and increasing productivity, so I get the most out of my working hours:
Plan Out Work the Night Before
After I shut down my computer for the night, I make a list of my top priorities and deadlines for the next day so I know what to tackle first.
Start With the Hard Stuff
If you aren’t a morning person, it can be a struggle to start with the hard tasks, but it will help you feel accomplished in a hurry.
Even though I’m a night owl, I like to complete my hardest and most important tasks early in the morning so things get easier as the day goes on.
With twin toddlers, I never know if I’ll actually get to work as long as I’d planned, so it’s best to finish my priorities early in the day.
Make Time for Exercise
Working from home allows you the flexibility of setting your own schedule, but sometimes this flexibility can be a negative, leading to procrastination instead of action as you think you have time to “do it later.”
Prioritize time for exercise, as it relieves stress and improves your mood. Schedule it for the same time each week, if possible, so you don’t forget about this healthy habit.
I go to yoga every Tuesday night, and I try to work out once or twice more during the week depending on how busy it is. I have a membership to a nice gym, and it’s worth every penny because my kids enjoy spending time in its huge daycare area.
Use Tools Wisely
Play around with timers, schedulers, calendars and website blockers to find ones that work best for you.
Tracking your time helps you realize just how much of it you’re devoting to focused work and how much you’re wasting. Plus, this easily helps you gauge how much you earn each hour.
Website blockers were a great productivity booster for my business. I used Self Control to block Facebook from my web browser, and it significantly improved my focus and work rate.
Could You Work From Home?
Ultimately, working from home isn’t for everyone, but many people are hugely successful at it.
The key to success when you work from home is finding the best way to eliminate distractions and boost productivity. That way, whether you have twin toddlers or not, you can feel great about your workday and feel motivated to keep going.
The key is to make the most of your uninterrupted work time and not get distracted by social media sites, chores, or phone calls with family and friends. If you stick to these rules, you truly can have the best of both worlds — a successful and thriving business and much more time with your kids than the average working mom.
Your Turn: Do you work from home and have kids? Share your tips in the comments!
Catherine Alford is an award-winning family finance expert and financial writer who lives in Detroit, Michigan, and blogs at CatherineAlford.com. When she is not working, she enjoys yoga, spending time with her 2.5 year old boy/girl twins, and doing DIY projects around the house.
The post I Work From Home… and I Have Twin Toddlers. Here’s How I Manage Everything appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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