Get Life Insurance Starting at $5/Month (Cheaper Than Your Starbucks Order)

Maybe you’ve thought about getting life insurance, but it seems like an intimidating, time-consuming and expensive process.

Just tune out all the noise and focus on one fact you should know: It probably won’t take as long — or cost as much — as you think.

Check out this stat: Nearly half of millennials overestimate the cost of life insurance by about five times the actual amount, according to a 2018 Life Insurance and Market Research Association study.

The fact is life insurance policies start at under $5 per month with no medical exams or blood tests if you get one through a company called Bestow. That costs less than a venti caramel frappuccino at Starbucks.

And if you’re looking to get a lot of life insurance, you should know that $1 million worth of coverage can cost as little as $1 per day.

That’s the price a healthy 32-year-old woman would pay. Even if you’re not a healthy 32-year-old woman, you might be surprised by how low your premiums are.

Life Insurance — Made Simple and Fast

If you’re under the age of 55 and want to get a fast life insurance quote without the medical exam, pushy sales calls or even getting up from the couch, check out Bestow. The company is built around one concept — helping you get the term life insurance policy you want, simply and quickly.

It takes about five minutes to answer some basic lifestyle questions: Are you a smoker? Do you scuba dive, rock climb or race cars? Any criminal convictions or medical diagnoses?

You can get quotes and apply for coverage without taking a medical exam. If you’re approved, you can personalize your coverage to fit your budget. You can change or cancel your plan at any time.

Bestow sells life insurance plans with terms of two, 10 or 20 years. The amount of coverage ranges from $50,000 to $1 million. It’s easy to find something that fits your budget.

Bestow is available in every U.S. state except for New York and Georgia. It plans to expand into Georgia sometime in 2019, and it’s working on New York.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He is not a healthy 32-year-old woman.

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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Only 1% of Americans Have a Perfect Credit Score. Here’s How to Join Them

It’s the mountaintop. It’s a badge of honor. It’s a totem of success. It’s like finding a four-leaf clover. It’s the tippy-top — the cream of the crop.

It’s a perfect credit score. And it’s a rare accomplishment.

How many people do you think have an absolutely perfect, flawless credit score? And do you think you could be one of them?

Here’s your answer: About 1% of Americans have a perfect credit score. And yes, you could be one of them — if you play your cards right.

They’re Totally Judging You

Your credit score ranges from 300 to 850. Lenders use it to predict whether you’re going to pay them back.

So, who achieves perfection?

Well, about 200 million American consumers have FICO credit scores, according to Fair Isaac Corp., the company that created FICO scores back in the 1980s.

At any given time, roughly 1% of them score perfect 850s. And FICO tells The Penny Hoarder that nearly 22% of U.S. consumers have FICO scores between 800 and 850. Experian, one of the major credit bureaus, tells us that more than 4 million consumers have a score higher than 830.

So let’s get those competitive juices flowing! You’re not going to let these people outdo you, are you? Heck no!

You can do it, too. We’ll tell you how.

Check Your Report Card

Your credit score is based on factors such as your payment history, amount of credit limit used, diversity of credit and length of credit history. Lenders and creditors use it to decide whether to lend you money and what interest rates to charge you. The higher your score, the better deal you’ll get on a mortgage, car loan or credit card.

Once upon a time, your score was a mystery kept under lock and key. You had to shell out money to see it.

Now it’s easy to see it for free. You can get your credit score and a “credit report card” for free from Credit Sesame. It breaks down exactly what’s on your credit report in layman’s terms, and how it affects your score.

It gives you personalized tips on how to fix any problems — which can help you in your quest to achieve a perfect score.

Here are the kinds of things it’ll suggest you work on:

1. Don’t Max out Your Cards

An important part of your credit score is “credit utilization.” That’s a fancy-pants way of saying “how much of your available credit you’re actually using.”

Let’s say you have a credit card with a $2,000 limit on it, and you have a balance of $1,000 that you haven’t paid off. You’re using half your credit. Your credit utilization is 50%.

It should really be lower. Many experts suggest keeping your ratio no higher than 30%. But the lower, the better.

This makes more difference than you might think. Your credit utilization accounts for 30% of your credit score.

2. Dispute Wrong Information

One out of every five credit reports has an error in it, according to a study by the Federal Trade Commission.

So take a look at your credit report, and dispute any incorrect information. If you find an “unpaid” credit card that you know you paid, or a bill in collections that you know never existed, you should file a dispute.

The three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — are each required to give you a free credit report once every 12 months..  

You can file a dispute online for free with the appropriate credit bureau. After you fill out an online form, most disputes get investigated within a month.

3. Be Smarter With Your Credit

Here are your other strategic, chess-like moves to get yourself closer to an 850 credit score, day by day:

• Pay your bills on time, every time. Your payment history accounts for 35% of your credit score.
• Mix up your credit use with credit cards, loans, etc. Your credit mix accounts for 10% of your score.
• Get started with credit early if you can. If you have a longer history of managing your credit, banks view you as less risky. The length of your credit history accounts for 15% of your credit score.
• Be choosy when applying for new credit — Credit Sesame will let you know your chances of being accepted for credit cards, mortgages and other loans.

You can do it!

You can get a perfect credit score. You can reach the mountaintop.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. His current credit score is way better than it used to be.

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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Here’s How to Manage Your Credit Like a Millionaire (Even If You Live on Ramen)

You dream big. In fact, you imagine dining on caviar while relaxing on a yacht.

Nevermind that you are actually chowing down on some ramen on your futon. It’s all a state of mind, right?

Yes and no. Take that state of mind just a bit further and start practicing what you dream. You know that if you want to make it big, you need to  manage your credit score, so why not start do it like a millionaire?

Thinking like a millionaire when it comes to your credit score could help you get closer to living your caviar dreams. Here are a few tips:

1. Pay Your Credit Cards On Time and Get Paid Back

Paying your credit card bills in full each month is an absolute must if you want to boost your credit score. In a perfect world, you’ll pay off your balance every one or two weeks to keep your utilization low (more on that below).

So why even use them?

If you get the right credit card, it will pay you back. Look for credit cards that have no annual fee but offer rewards like cash back, travel points or some other perk.

If you’re not sure which credit card is right for you, Credit Sesame can help. Credit Sesame, a personal credit-score management service, can pair you up with the best credit cards to keep your credit score healthy.

Using credit cards helps you build a credit history. Paying them off boosts your payment history. By choosing the right card, you could also be flying first class or treating yourself to a bottle of bubbly with your rewards.

Now that’s living rich.

2. Have More Credit Than You Use

Can you imagine the credit limit on a millionaire’s card?

Now, do you think they use all of that? To keep your credit score in great shape, keep your credit utilization below 30%. That means, however much credit you have available through credit cards or lines of credit, only use 30% or less.

To find out what your credit utilization is, log into Credit Sesame. It breaks your credit score down into separate categories and grades them so you can see exactly what needs attention. If your credit utilization gets an “A,” great! If not, Credit Sesame will offer suggestions to better manage your credit.

Even if you’ve let your credit card debt accumulate, take a deep breath. Using Credit Sesame helped this mom pay off nine credit cards and climb out of debt.

If you’ve been good and have been paying your credit cards on time, consider asking the credit card company to increase your spending limit. Here’s the millionaire trick: When you get more credit, don’t use it.

True, you won’t be able to buy a new boat with your card and keep your credit utilization under the desired threshold, but you could probably buy a pretty nifty boat hat. You know, dress for success.

3. Let Your Credit Age Like a Fine Wine

Did you know credit age is a factor in your credit score? Credit Sesame says creditors and lenders like to see an average account age of more than five years.

So, if you are closing out those store cards you haven’t used in a while, you’re not doing yourself any favors. Let them be. In fact, it can be a good idea to charge something on them at least once or twice a year, just to keep the account active and in good standing.

So what happens if you need to get a new loan or credit card? It could bring your score down temporarily because it’s brand new, but don’t fret. Just keep a few older accounts open to keep that average age where you want it. Just one credit card that’s 15 years old can help offset the effect of new credit.

Credit age, while important, only accounts for 15% of your score, so be mindful of it, but don’t lose sleep over it.

4. Diversify Your Credit Like It’s a Millionaire’s Portfolio

You always hear how important it is for an investor to diversify their portfolio. Why? Because if you have millions of dollars in investments, you don’t want all of your eggs in one basket.

Another sneaky part of your credit score is your credit mix. This is based on the types of credit and debt you carry, like car loans, mortgage, credit cards and student loans. Having a diverse credit history shows lenders you have the ability to handle different types of accounts, and that helps boost your score.

Should you go buy a house on a whim like a movie star just to get a mortgage into the mix? Of course not.

But if you’re looking at a home remodel of some type or other expense, consider getting a loan rather than putting it on a credit card. For example, Jerry Morgan told us Credit Sesame helped him realize a car loan could improve his score.

Boom. You’re diversified and rocking your credit score like a big-wig.

5. Be Smart When Shopping Around

Do you think millionaires just buy whatever they want without looking at the cost? A few, maybe, but most of them didn’t get to be millionaires by being frivolous with their money.

And neither should you. If you’re thinking about buying a car or a home, shop around to see who will give you the best interest rate. A few percentage points can mean a lot of money over the course of a loan. Most online marketplaces can give you quotes without impacting your credit score.

To avoid applications and inquiries that could hurt your score, use Credit Sesame to check out your personalized buying power. This shows you what credit cards, loans or mortgage amounts you will likely qualify for before you apply.

Give Your Credit Score the Millionaire Treatment

You don’t have to rake in millions of dollars to have a credit score that shines like the hood ornament on a Mercedes. Just give it a little love and attention and it could actually help you get a little bit closer to that millionaire life.

By managing your credit and boosting your score from good to excellent, you can open opportunities you wouldn’t otherwise have. You can get that great mortgage rate. You can get an auto loan rather than buying a beater off Craigslist.

To see where you credit score is right now and to learn how to manage it, sign up for Credit Sesame. It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s the coach you need to manage your credit like than a millionaire.

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

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

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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Stockpile Review | Investing Made Easy

Purchasing individual stocks can be expensive and cumbersome, leading a lot of people to miss out on a great investment opportunity.

That’s where Stockpile comes in, making everything easy by allowing you to purchase fractional stocks and stock gift cards.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at Stockpile including how it works and the costs involved, so you can see if it provides the best solution for your investment needs.

Stockpile Review

1. About Stockpile
2. Stockpile Features
3. Key Considerations
4. Pros and Cons
5. Bottom Line

About Stockpile

Launched in 2010, Stockpile is an online brokerage service that allows you to purchase, sell, and gift fractional shares in more than a thousand stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and American depositary receipts (ADRs) through gift cards. The minimum purchase allowed is $5.

You must be a U.S. citizen or resident at least 18 years of age to open a Stockpile account. Minors are allowed to receive stock gift cards, but their parent or guardian will need to set up a custodial account for them.

If you are looking to introduce your children to the basics of investing, you will find Stockpile an invaluable tool.

What Stockpile Has to Offer

Stockpile offers a variety of products and services that set them apart from other brokerage service providers. Two of their primary services include fractional shares and stock gift cards.

Fractional Shares

Sometimes you may want to own shares in a specific company, but you can’t afford the extremely high price of the stock.

With Stockpile, you can purchase fractional shares to reduce the cost of your investment, allowing you to purchase whole shares slowly over time.

If a company’s stock is priced at $5,000, for example, you can decide to purchase a portion of the stock. If you pay $100 for the stock, you get 0.02 shares.

The value of that stock can grow from there or go down depending on the market dynamics. However, you won’t have much to lose if the market goes down because you’ve invested very little.

Stockpile Gift Cards

You can purchase Stockpile gift cards for a loved one, which they can then use to buy stocks in a wide range of well-known companies, including Google, Netflix, and Amazon. You have the option of purchasing the card either as a physical card or as an E-card.

If you opt to purchase the e-card, you can get it from the Stockpile website. You don’t need to sign up for an account to be able to make a purchase.

Just follow the steps below:

1. Choose your preferred stock
2. Choose the amount you want to spend
3. Pay for your stock at the checkout window

Keep in mind the final price you’ll pay will include the cost of the card and the gifting fee. The gifting fee includes the trading fee and the credit/debit card fee. Once you pay the total amount at the checkout window, the recipient will get a card for the full amount you wanted to give them.

You can get physical Stockpile gift cards at various stores in the United States. The list of those stores can be found on the Stockpile website.

Check out Stockpile’s gift cards>>

Key Considerations

Fees

Stockpile products and services are priced quite competitively. To begin with, note that the buyer shoulders most of the cost to ensure the recipient receives the whole amount of the gift card. You will need to pay $2.99 to cover the purchase fee on first stock bought with the e-card.

Then there’s a 3 percent debit/credit card fee. That means if you are buying a $100 gift card, you’ll need to pay a total of $5.99 between the two fees. The higher the denomination of the gift card, the more you will pay in fees, thanks to the 3 percent charge.

If you choose to go with physical cards, you will have to dig deeper into your pocket. For a $100 gift card, for example, you’ll pay a $7.95 service fee, which is $1.96 more than what you would pay for an e-card of the same value.

Physical Cards

Physical cards are available in three denominations:

• $25 – with $4.95 in fees
• $50 – with $6.95 in fees
• $100 – with $7.95 in fees

You may also have to pay for shipping of the physical cards. However, shipping is usually free if you purchase at least three gift cards.

The good thing about physical cards is that they normally have a greater positive impact compared to an e-card sent to someone via an email—there’s just something about holding a physical product that resonates more with recipients.

How To Redeem Stockpile Gift Cards

Purchasing Stockpile gift cards is simple and straightforward. However, redeeming them can be quite challenging. The recipient needs to be at least 18 years old and open a Stockpile brokerage account. If the recipient is a minor, a custodial account in the name of a parent or guardian is required.

It’s also mandatory for the recipient to be a U.S. citizen or resident. Fortunately, the recipient doesn’t have to purchase stock in the company specified on the gift card.

While that is an option, Stockpile gift cards are for the site itself rather than individual stocks, meaning any product on the site can be purchased with the gift card.

What if the recipient is not interested in purchasing any stock? Stockpile allows recipients to redeem gift cards for a gift to selected retail merchants. This is particularly helpful if the recipient isn’t in the US or is otherwise ineligible for a Stockpile account for any reason.

Stockpile Pros and Cons

Like any other investing app, Stockpile has its advantages and disadvantages. Let’s explore some of them so you can make a more informed decision on whether to use it or not.

The Pros

• Stockpile offers one of the best and simplest ways to give the gift of stock.
• The ability to buy fractional shares is what drives Stockpile, thanks to the fact that most of the leading stocks are trading for much more than the $50 to $100 typical loaded on gift cards.
• The basic trading fee of $0.99 is one of the lowest you can get on the brokerage market today.
• Stockpile requires no minimum account balance. It allows a gift card recipient to open an account with no more than the cash value of their gift card.
• Stockpile charges no annual fees on its brokerage account.

The Cons

• There’s no access to direct customer support through live chat or phone.
• Stockpile limits share purchases to the bigger name securities despite the fact that it offers over 100 RTFs and 1,000 stocks.
• If you are an active trader who would need an investment account, Stockpile may not be appropriate for you as it isn’t a full-service broker.
• You can’t access Stockpile if you are outside of the U.S.
• If anything goes wrong and Stockpile closes shop, your gift cards will become useless.

Bottom Line

Stockpile was developed to enable people to gift small amounts of stocks and to introduce children and beginning investors to the basics of investing.

You may want to give your child stock on a special occasion, instead of toys, or build up your own portfolio on a low budget.

That’s where Stockpile comes in handy. It helps you give the gift of stock or allows you to purchase stock for yourself in affordable amounts using fractional shares.

Invest in fractional shares with Stockpile>>

 

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OppLoans Installment Loans Review

OppLoans was founded in 2010 as an alternative to pricey payday loans that charge exorbitant interest rates and trap consumers in a cycle of debt. While these loans may indeed be considered “personal loans,” OppLoans focuses on offering short-term installment loans to high-risk borrowers. The biggest benefit of these loans is the fact that there is no credit check required.

It’s true that OppLoans has higher interest rates and ongoing costs than many other personal lenders, but they are easier to qualify for and their rates are significantly lower than payday loans. For that reason, we think OppLoans could be useful as a lender of last resort when you can’t get approved for a traditional personal loan with a lower interest rate and better terms.

OppLoans Installment Loans: Key Takeaways

• Apply for an installment loan with an APR between 99% and 199%.
• Repay your loan for up to 36 months.
• There are no hidden fees, and you won’t pay any prepayment penalties if you pay your loan off early.
• Loan amounts are offered between $1,000 and $4,000.
• Use one of these loans to build your credit and improve your credit score.

OppLoans Review: A Lower Cost Alternative to Payday Loans

Let’s be clear: OppLoans installment loans are not the best personal loan option available, and shouldn’t really be considered by most people who need to borrow money. However, these loans can work well for a specific type of consumer: individuals trapped in payday loan hell.

Because short-term payday loans charge interest rates as high as 400% a year, they often trap borrowers in a cycle where they’re living paycheck to paycheck and relying on these high-cost loans to fund their living expenses. The cycle can be very difficult to break out of, due to the exorbitant interest rates and brief payback windows of payday loans — and the fact that they wind up devouring more and more of your take-home pay the longer you rely on them.

OppLoans steps in to help consumers break the cycle by offering an alternative to payday loans for consumers with bad credit. OppLoans installment loans charge annualized interest rates of 99% to 199% — which, while sky-high, are still considerably lower than payday loans. The best part is, they don’t require a credit check.

If you’re constantly having to rely on payday loans to stay afloat, borrowing with OppLoans could help you dig your way out. You could use one of these loans to borrow up to $4,000 and pay off your payday loans for good. From there, you can focus on paying off your OppLoans installment loan for up to 36 months with no prepayment penalties.

In the meantime, you can take time to educate yourself about personal finance so you never wind up using a payday loan again. In addition to installment loans, OppLoans offers an OppU online learning platform. This online university of sorts includes interactive courses that can help you learn better financial habits.

At the end of the day, OppLoans isn’t trying to be the most affordable lender on the block. Instead, this company focuses their offerings on a specific niche and goal, by offering a lower-cost alternative to payday loans and title loans that consumers can apply for without a credit check. OppLoans isn’t a perfect solution by any means, but this company does have loans that could be advantageous in certain situations.

One final detail to note is the fact that OppLoans lets you see if you can qualify without a hard inquiry on your credit report. This is a big bonus since many lenders make you complete a formal application with a hard inquiry on your credit report to find out if you can qualify at all.

• Related: No Credit Check Loans

OppLoans Installment Loans: What to Watch Out For

The biggest downside of using OppLoans for your lending needs is obvious: With interest rates between 99% and 199%, OppLoans is one of the most expensive ways to borrow money.

If you were to take out a $4,000 installment loan from OppLoans at their lowest advertised APR of 99%, and chose to pay it off over their longest timeline (36 months), that $4,000 would end up costing you a grand total of $12,600.

Borrowing money at such a high interest rate isn’t just costly over time — it will also leave you with a high monthly payment that could be difficult to afford. If you fail to repay your loan, you’ll wind up hurting your credit so much that it could take years or even decades to repair it. For that reason, we can only suggest OppLoans to consumers who have no other options available to them.

Another downside of OppLoans is the fact they are not available in all 50 states. Currently, this lender only originates installment loans in Alabama, California, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. If you live somewhere else, you’ll have to find a different lender.

Finally, keep in mind that OppLoans doesn’t offer the large loan amounts many other lenders do. Because they have a specific niche, you can only borrow up to $4,000 and repay it in 36 months or less.

Who OppLoans Is Best For:

• Consumers who are stuck taking out payday loans and need a way to break the cycle.
• Anyone who can’t qualify for a different loan with a lowest interest rate and better loan terms.
• People who have a concrete plan to repay their loan funds in a short amount of time.

How We Rate OppLoans Installment Loans

At The Simple Dollar, we aim to provide a general overview of a lender’s products and services through a standard rating process. After a thorough research and discovery period, here’s how OppLoans stacks up:

OppLoans at a Glance
Overall Rating	Affordability (interest rates, fees, and terms)
	Availability (credit requirements, geographic reach)
	Ease of Use
	Transparency

How to Apply for an Installment Loan from OppLoans

While OppLoans is far from perfect, they do have one big advantage compared to many other lenders. You can complete the entire application process online without having to speak to anyone.

This is a big advantage over payday lenders and title loan companies who make you visit a physical branch and stand in line. You’ll save money on interest using OppLoans in place of a payday loan, but you’ll also save yourself plenty of hassle and stress.

To apply for a loan through OppLoans, you’ll need to provide:

• Your full name
• Phone number
• Email address
• Address of residence
• Date of birth
• Social Security number
• Income information
• Employment information
• Date of last payday
• Preferred loan amount and repayment timeline
• Proof of checking or savings account
• Bank account number

Once you provide the required information, you could receive approval for your loan within a few hours. Depending on when you apply, you could also receive your funds electronically in your bank account as soon as the next business day.

The Bottom Line

If you need to borrow money, it’s crucial to shop around with different lenders to compare loan rates, terms, and fees. No matter your credit score and income, you’ll find a wide range of offers available to you — including some that are much better than others.

OppLoans is a lender of last resort for people with poor credit who need help paying off payday loans or title loans. With interest rates that range between 99% and 199%, these loans are going to be more expensive than most personal loans on the market.

With that being said, it’s possible OppLoans could be your best bet. The only way to find out is to see if you can get pre-qualified with a loan marketplace that lets you compare rates across multiple lenders. Don’t assume OppLoans is the best you can do; take steps to find out for sure.

Related Articles: 

• Best Bad Credit Personal Loans
• Best Personal Loans
• Best Debt Consolidation Loan Companies

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Website Usability Guide

I’ll get straight to the point — if your website isn’t user-friendly, it will never succeed. That’s why website usability needs to be a top priority in 2019.

People don’t have to put with a poor user experience anymore. If they’re unhappy with a website, they’ll can just navigate back to a search engine and find another site to meet their needs. It’s that simple.

Once they go, they’re gone: 88% of online users are unlikely to return to a website after a bad experience.

On the flip side, if your website is user-friendly, people will keep coming back. Following website usability best practices will also increase your conversion rates.

But, most website owners don’t realize that their site isn’t user-friendly. Obviously, nobody is going to intentionally make things difficult on their customers.

That’s my inspiration for writing this guide. I want to show you the best practices you need to follow in 2019 to make your site user friendly. Follow along and make sure these principles are applied to your website.

Optimize for mobile devices

This should go without saying, but surprisingly, I still find myself landing on websites that haven’t been optimized for mobile users.

It’s wild, because 52% of global Internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Those mobile users are doing more than just browsing from their devices; they’re buying as well.

In fact, mobile commerce will account for roughly 73% of total ecommerce market in the next two years.

Some areas of the world have already surpassed that figure. Today, roughly 75% of ecommerce sales in China come from mobile devices.

So the first thing you need to do it make sure that your website is optimized for mobile devices. Even after that’s done, there are still improvements you can make to improve the website usability for mobile users.

When someone is browsing from a desktop computer, it’s easy for them to click nearly anywhere on the screen. On a desktop, there’s nothing wrong with putting your CTA or other clickable items in a corner.

That’s not the case for mobile devices where 75% of users navigate and click using their thumbs and 49% click with just one hand.

As you can see from this graphic, this makes it challenging for people to reach certain areas of their screens. If you have buttons in those red zones, it’s going to frustrate people on your mobile website.

It’s uncomfortable for them to try and reach the corners, and they might even click on something else by mistake. If they navigate to the wrong page, it’s going to be frustrating, since it adds steps to their process.

So even if your website passes a mobile-friendly test, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s been fully optimized for the user experience.

Follow WCAG standards

The web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) were created so that websites can meet the needs of people with disabilities.

Roughly 15% of people across the globe live with some form of a disability. You don’t want to discourage or discriminate anyone from visiting your website. Everyone is entitled to a good experience.

Here are some of the categories of disabilities that can affect people on the web:

• Auditory
• Cognitive
• Neurological
• Physical
• Speech
• Visual

So what can you do to make your website more accessible? I’ll give you some examples.

About 300 million people in the world are color blind. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they see in black and white. It just means they process certain colors differently. You need to make sure your website isn’t using conflicting colors that can’t be processed by people with visual impairments.

Avoid alternating color backgrounds and flashing lights on your website. These elements can trigger seizures from people who suffer from light sensitivity.

To accommodate website visitors who have hearing impairments, you should add captions to all video content. Make sure that captions are displayed long enough for people to read and process the information.

The WCAC has four main principles to meet their web accessibility standards.

If your website is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for as many people as possible, you’ll meet those standards.

Stick to common design elements

When you’re designing a website, it can be tempting to get creative. Maybe creativity is part of your brand’s image, or maybe you just want to experiment with something new.

Save that innovation for your products and marketing campaigns. When it comes to usability, it’s in your best interest to follow common web design best practices.

Why?

People have a certain expectation when they land on a website. Let me give you an analogy to showcase my point.

What do you expect when you walk into a fast food chain, like McDonald’s? You wait in line, order at the register, then they call your number when your food is ready. That’s a pretty standard experience.

But what if you walked into a McDonald’s and an employee sat you at a table. They brought you some menus and asked you what you want to drink. Then they came back five minutes later to take your order, emulating a fine dining experience.

That’s not what you expect from a McDonald’s. You want fast food and fast service. Sure, this is a creative and unique approach, but it disrupts the customers’ flow and actually hinders their experience.

Now, apply this same concept to your website. If you try to reinvent the wheel, it won’t be a good experience for your visitors who are used to having things a certain way.

According to a recent study, these are the most standard elements people expect when they visit a website:

• Logo in top left of screen
• Contact information in top right of screen
• Horizontal main menu navigation in the header at the top of each page
• Search bar in the header
• Social media follow icons in the footer

It’s in your best interest to follow these best practices. Don’t put the search bar in the footer and position your menu vertically on the right side of the screen. This will only confuse your visitors.

Create a visual hierarchy

It takes 2.6 seconds for a person’s eyes to land on an area of a website that will stimulate their first impression. This is something that happens automatically.

What does this mean in terms of your site’s usability? You need to make it easy for your visitors to understand what they’re looking at.

Imagine landing on a website that has 20 images on the homepage. Where do you look? It’s overwhelming, and people won’t know what to do. This is not a good user experience.

Instead, create a visual hierarchy that shows users the most important pieces of your website.

Here’s an example. Look at these four circles and rank them on their order of importance.

Even though you don’t know anything about these circles and what they represent, you still know that the blue one is the most important, followed by the green one. That’s what a visual hierarchy looks like.

So if the most important piece of content on your homepage that will add value to the visitor is positioned as the yellow circle, that hurts the user experience.

Without a visual hierarchy, people might navigate to the wrong page or focus on unimportant components of your website. That’s not what you want to happen.

These are the factors that you need to keep in mind when you’re designing your visual hierarchy for website usability.

• Size
• Color
• Contrast
• Position
• Negative space
• Alignment

Simplify the navigation

Ease of navigation is arguably the most important aspect of usability, especially for ecommerce businesses. Your homepage is important, but ultimately, users will need to navigate to other landing pages in order to convert.

How does a user get from point A to point B? How long does it take? How many clicks do they need to make?

These are all factors that need to be taken into consideration. Look at the top 10 reasons for shopping cart abandonment.

As you can see, two of the top three reasons for cart abandonment are related to navigation. Price was the only factor that ranked higher.

When a website forces people to create an account before checking out, it adds unnecessary steps to the checkout process, therefore making the navigation more complex than it needs to be.

Simple navigation needs to be a priority for all websites, even if they aren’t selling products on an ecommerce platform.

Let’s say you run a simple blog. How do visitors get from your homepage to your blog? How are your blog posts organized? Can they search for a particular post?

All of these are related to navigation.

Clickable content also falls into this category. If the text on your homepage is clickable and brings people to another landing page, it needs to be clear. Change the color, underline it, or turn that text into a button. Otherwise, it will be challenging for people to know where to click.

Establish credibility

People won’t have a good user experience on your website if they think it’s untrustworthy. Credibility needs to be established right away. Otherwise, visitors will feel unsafe while they’re navigating.

Be transparent about your content, prices, and contact information. Don’t force people to hunt all of your website to find those things.

Here’s what people expect when they land on a homepage.

Keeping these numbers in mind, what do you think the perception of a website would be if the homepage doesn’t include product information, contact information, or an About Us page? It’s going to be negative.

Prices should be clearly displayed next to each product. If the user has to click or navigate to another page to view prices, it’s not optimal for their experience.

(I know some websites don’t display prices until a product has been added to a shopping cart. This is primarily a workaround for offering deep discounts that they can’t advertise because of a relationship with the manufacturer. I don’t recommend this as a high-conversion strategy.)

Once you’ve established credibility on your website, your visitors will be at ease. They won’t be worried about getting scammed or clicking on a spam link. This will increase their chances of engaging with your content and converting.

Make sure your content is legible

Just because a font would look cool for your next tattoo, it doesn’t mean that it belongs on your website. If people can’t read the text on your site, they’re going to leave.

Take a look at some of the best fonts that go together in 2019.

Even after you pick a font, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your content is legible. You also need to think about your color choices, paragraph length, and your spacing.

Let’s say you pick a standard font, like the one I’m using for this blog post right now. It’s clearly legible, but not if you make the text yellow and put it over an orange background.

People don’t read word for word. In fact, the average person only reads 20% of your website. So your content needs to be highly scannable. You might be scanning this blog post right now. That’s why I write with short paragraphs, include lots of headers, images, and bullet points.

If each section was just one big block of text, it would be tough to read. But making it legible and scannable improves the user experience.

Be consistent

Your website needs to have consistency from page to page. If you’re always switching your themes and layouts, it’s going to be too confusing.

For example, let’s analyze this product page from Lululemon.

• Product images on the left
• Product name in on top right
• Price below product name
• Description on right
• Color choices below description
• Add to cart on bottom right

This is all very simple and straightforward. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this layout.

Now, imagine that you’re browsing on this website and you land on this page. Maybe you add the item to your cart; maybe not. But either way, you decide to look at some more products.

If you navigate to another product page and it doesn’t look identical to this, you’re going to be very confused. All of these elements need to be consistent on each page.

Conclusion

Website usability can make or break the success of your site. If visitors don’t having a good experience, they aren’t going to come back.

These are the most important elements of website usability in 2019:

• Mobile optimization
• Website accessibility
• Common design elements
• Visual hierarchy
• Simple navigation
• Credibility
• Legible and scannable content
• Consistency from page to page

Use this guide as a reference to implement these components on your website. Once you’ve accomplished this, you’ll benefit from happy website visitors that will convert and keep coming back in the future.

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The Low Effort and Big Savings Garden

My wife and I plant a vegetable and herb garden every single year behind our house. We have several slightly raised boxes, one of which is devoted to perennials (meaning things grow every year, meaning there’s almost no maintenance there).

Over the years, we’ve come to really appreciate vegetables and herbs that are what you might call low effort and big savings. In other words, we like vegetables that are fairly expensive at the store but are actually really easy to grow at home without a ton of effort.

This frees us to not have to worry about the garden every day. Sure, one (or both) of us will probably go out there a couple of times a week to check things over and to pull a few weeds, but we don’t have to be out there every day other than to maybe look it over from our back patio. Most of our effort, after a solid day of garden work in the spring, is spent pulling a few weeds here and there, watering it occasionally, and harvesting.

The same thing was true when we used to live in an apartment. We really enjoyed vegetables we could grow in large pots out on our front patio, as we didn’t have a garden to grow vegetables in.

My math is that most years we spend about $5 on seeds, we reuse the tools we’ve had for years, and our garden produced hundreds of dollars worth of vegetables. This requires us to spend one day in the spring with some pretty serious effort in the garden, followed by looking at it every day we’re around and maybe a bit of weeding twice a week or so that takes maybe thirty minutes on a nice afternoon. There are some additional startup costs as well, as you’ll need a few tools to get going.

Interested? Here are some notes from our low-effort-big-savings garden.

Own a Home? Consider a Box Garden

A box garden is basically a wooden box that’s intended to separate your garden from the rest of the yard. This makes it a lot easier to mow around it, plus it’s easier to keep weeds from gradually invading over time. You still have to weed it mostly due to grass seed that inevitably gets in there, but it’s not bad. It also eliminates the need for a tiller to turn over the soil for the first time, though you may eventually want a small one for spring and fall soil care.

A box garden consists of four 4″ by 4″ corner posts and four 2″ by 4″ or 2″ by 6″ long boards to make up the sides. You simply choose a flat place in your yard, set the posts in the ground, and then screw the side boards into the posts, forming a box. It’s a few hours of work, but it’s not very complicated; it just requires measuring carefully, digging a few small holes in your yard and putting in some wood screws. I recommend something like a 6′ by 8′ box to get started. You’ll need to put some barrier cloth along the bottom and put some planting soil in there (which you can buy in bulk pretty inexpensively). Here’s a guide for getting started.

If you want to get some inexpensive soil, get a couple of large buckets, find a home building project going on near you and ask if you can have some of that dirt. Fill the buckets up with soil, take it home, and fill your garden with it; just be sure to remove rocks. Easy as can be! It is worth noting that the soil in your area might not be great for growing; you’ll want to start feeding it immediately, so check the section below.

Own an Apartment? Consider a Container Garden

A container garden is just one or more large containers filled with soil that you keep on the patio, balcony, or deck of your apartment. Small containers can even work on a window shelf (think of a large flowerpot). You can typically find containers at home improvement and gardening stores, though you can sometimes find them at yard sales and on community swap sites.

Using a container is simple. You make sure the container has a few holes in the bottom for drainage. You fill up the bottom quarter with gravel. Then, you fill the rest with soil; as noted above, you can either buy some planting soil or see if there’s any soil freely available, though the freely available soil may need some improvement.

The advantage of containers is that they can be moved inside when the weather gets harsh, extending the growing season of the plants. It’s possible to have tomato plants that continue growing and producing for years.

Feeding Your Soil

As plants grow, they absorb nutrients from the soil. Soil isn’t infinitely abundant in nutrients, so you do need to replenish those nutrients in some way. There are a number of ways to do this.

My favorite way, which is inexpensive and easy, is with a compost bucket. Just get a large bucket with a loose fitting lid and put your vegetable scraps and coffee grounds in it. Mash it down and mix it around occasionally. It will eventually acquire a sweet aroma and start to break down into rich black or brown compost. When things have broken down to the point where you can no longer tell the structure of anything and it all looks like black mush or soil, you can spread it on your garden. I like to make this stuff really wet before doing so.

Another way that requires a little less effort but is less effective is to simply throw vegetable scraps into a small bucket for a few weeks, add water until it’s full for a day or so, then just pour off the water onto your garden. Again, this won’t be nearly as rich as full compost, but it’s far better than nothing.

You can always buy fertilizer at the store, but that can be fairly expensive.

Another good strategy is to add earthworms to your garden. On a rainy day, go on a walk just after the rain stops and take a cup with you. If you see any earthworms that have surfaced, grab them and put them in your cup. When you get home, put all of the worms you found in your garden. They’ll naturally help improve the soil over time – they increase the water and air content of the soil, break down organic matter, and they leave behind their casings as they grow, which is an amazing form of fertilizer. You can even put worms straight into your compost bucket, as the worms will devour the compost, break things down even more, and add their casings to your bucket.

Watering and Weeding

Most of the things listed below are quite hardy and can survive imperfect watering and weeding. We’ve had seasons where we’ve left the garden untouched for weeks and these vegetables and herbs have been just fine.

Having said that, you should water your garden when the soil is dry and you should remove weeds on a consistent basis – just pull anything that’s not the vegetable you want out by the roots and throw it away.

The thing I like about gardening tasks is that they’re very quiet and contemplative. It’s not mentally difficult work – you’re simply pouring water on the garden or pulling up small plants. However, there’s something about it that’s deeply relaxing. I find it’s a great time to think about the world and the time passes almost in the blink of an eye.

With the strategies and plant options in this article, this doesn’t have to be a major commitment of time. It’s just ten minutes here or half an hour on a Saturday. By focusing on plants that require minimal effort to grow, you don’t have to live in your garden to have nice produce.

Keeping Bugs and Pests Away

Bugs and pests vary widely depending on your location, so there’s no universal advice I can give. I will say that spraying mildly soapy water on the garden takes care of a lot of pests, and a small fence will keep things like rabbits out of your box garden, but the actual issues will vary greatly from place to place.

If you find that your plants are being eaten or that some sort of blight is bothering them, spend some time with Google figuring out what’s wrong. Many of the fixes are quite simple and really effective.

Eight Things to Grow

What will you grow in your garden? Here are eight things to consider growing, whether you’ve got a box garden or a container garden. Almost everything on this list can be planted and grown successfully by simply planting according to the seed packet directions, keeping the soil moist, and removing any weeds that are nearby.

Kale A packet of kale seeds costs about a dollar. The seeds in that packet, when planted, will start producing leaves in about six weeks and will produce leaves for several months afterward. Harvesting kale is easy – just go out and cut off some of the leaves with a knife or scissors.

Baby kale leaves are great in salads. Adult kale leaves can be cooked and used in a wide variety of dishes; I like it chopped up and put in soups, myself.

Lettuce While it’s not quite as big of a money saver as kale, lettuce is still incredibly simple to grow and produces leaves after six weeks or so for about six months. There are also a lot of varieties of lettuce, most of them much more flavorful than the head of iceberg lettuce in the store.

Some lettuce forms heads, which you can cut off and harvest; other lettuce is more like a bundle of leaves, which you can cut and eat as desired.

Almost all types of lettuce make for the backbone of a great flavorful salad. Large leaves can also be used for lettuce wraps.

Spinach Again, just like lettuce and kale, this leafy vegetable takes about six weeks to grow and can produce for several months. To harvest it, again, you just go out there and cut off the leaves that you want.

Spinach works well in salads, but it can also be cooked down as a side dish or used in many Italian dishes. I quite like spinach in lasagna, for example.

Tomatoes It’s easiest to buy a tomato start rather than a seed, as growing from a seed can be a bit of work. A start can usually be planted directly and will grow to producing fruit in about twelve weeks; it will continue to produce throughout the growing season and, if brought indoors in a container and left near a large window with plenty of sunlight, can produce into the winter and even beyond.

The uses for tomatoes are infinite. You can slice them for sandwiches, juice them, cook them down into sauce… the list goes on and on.

Broccoli This one’s easy to start from seeds. A single plant, started from a single seed, can produce several pounds of broccoli and grows in about ten weeks. It’s worth noting that broccoli does not do well in extreme heat, so if you have it in a container, you might want to consider moving the container inside during the peak of summer heat. You just cut the broccoli heads right off the plant.

Broccoli makes for a great side dish. It was also a key ingredient in a chicken, cheese, and broccoli casserole that my family often had when I was growing up.

Asparagus Asparagus requires an “asparagus patch” – a devoted spot in an outdoor perennial garden, which can just be the corner of your garden bed – which will take two years to get going, but will produce an abundance of asparagus for twenty or more years. Once it’s going, it will produce stalks in the early spring for a very long time with almost zero additional effort.

Asparagus makes for an absolutely delicious side dish. We eat it almost every day when asparagus is in season, often grilling it or baking it.

Root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, etc.) Root vegetables take quite a while to grow – up to several months, depending on the vegetable – but are extremely low effort and produce a nice crop for a very low price. The only real effort is digging them out when they’ve grown for long enough; you just mark an expected harvest day on the calendar and wait, keeping the top free from weeds.

Potatoes and sweet potatoes and turnips and carrots? The uses are infinite. Mash them, bake them, use them in casseroles, fry them… there are just so many uses for these things.

Perennial herbs These include mint, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, chives, and savory. You simply plant them once and they grow again and again, year after year. You just cut off what you need as you need it. You’ll want to have a devoted spot for these as they can kind of take over other things, but it can be something as simple as a small 1′ by 1′ patch beside the stairs coming off your deck or a small container devoted just to herbs.

These herbs pop up in countless recipes. You can also collect a lot of leaves at the end of the season and dry them for wintertime use with very little trouble.

Final Thoughts

Preparing the garden is one of the rites of spring, something that will be upon us very soon. Sarah and I are already planning for it.

When the weather turns warm, we’ll spend a beautiful Saturday out there with a hoe, turning the soil over and adding some compost and “fertilizer juice” and then planting a variety of vegetables.

Throughout the spring and summer, we’ll glance out at the garden, give it some water on dry days, and pull some weeds on the weekends when we want a peaceful hour or so outside.

In the summer and fall, our garden will produce an abundance of vegetables that add nothing to our grocery bill yet still fill our plates with delicious and healthy items. We usually have such an abundance that we trade extras with the neighbors or preserve some of them.

At the end of the year, we will have saved hundreds of dollars thanks to our garden. The produce will all be as fresh as possible (we often eat things that were still in the garden less than an hour before) and often better tasting than the varieties from the store (because they’re often selected for sale in a store based on how long they’re shelf stable rather than how delicious they are).

Our low effort garden produces incredible value for us, and I believe that it can do the same for anyone.

Good luck!

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