Got ribs? Oh yeah

DELAWARE WATER GAP — Even on a damp April morning you can detect the scent of smoked ribs wafting through the Delaware Water Gap Borough air. Wednesday through Sunday just before noon, that’s when diners know to start showing up at Joe Bosco Authentic Smokehouse BBQ at 55 Broad Street.The family-owned smokehouse reopened this year on April 19 for its second summer season. Soon, the restaurant may begin serving out its wood-smoked specialties year-round.“We [...]

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How I Get Things Done, Personally and Professionally

I get a lot of somewhat irregular reader questions like this:

What do you use to manage your to-do lists? Are you still using Todoist?

And this:

How do you use a pocket notebook? Do you use it for article ideas or something?

And this:

Not really understanding how you find time for hobbies on the weekend with all of the other things you claim you’re doing.

These questions are all really asking the same thing: how exactly do I get things done, personally and professionally?

Here’s what my life looks like:
+ I have a full time writing job that requires me to write 20-25K words per week and at least lightly edit most of them, among other responsibilities. I’m also trying to squeeze in writing a book on top of that.
+ I have a wife and thus a marriage that needs attention and care.
+ I have three children of varying ages from “early teen” to “early elementary,” which means constant things like food prep, getting kids to practice, solving lots of small problems, and so on.
+ I want to keep my body physically healthy, at least to the best of my ability. That means things like sleep and exercise.
+ I want to keep my mind healthy, too.
+ I have a handful of community responsibilities that wax and wane depending on what committees and boards I happen to be on at the moment.
+ I have a house in which a family of five lives that requires constant upkeep.
+ I want to maintain some kind of social life, some kind of intellectual life, and some hobbies.

I’m juggling all of this without cease, and that doesn’t even include things like worrying about my aging parents. How do I juggle all of this without failing in some areas or just wearing myself out or simply falling back on a lot of paid services to take care of details like laundry?

This article describes how I get things done now. This has changed a lot over the years, but this is the arrangement that seems to allot me the best performance at all of those things.

Let’s start with the single most important thing.

I’ve Dredged Everything That Isn’t Purposeful out of My Life

This doesn’t mean I have dredged everything enjoyable or everything fun out of my life. It means that I’ve removed everything that isn’t helping me achieve at least one thing on that list in a meaningful way.

My leisure time (and at least some of my intellectual time) center around three or four primary hobbies: reading, playing board games, hiking, and making foodstuffs. Notice the things that are not on that list.

Television isn’t on that list – I basically don’t watch television unless I’m engaged in family time (family movie night) or something similar.

Idle web browsing isn’t on that list – I don’t open up a web browser or a social media app without a distinct and specific professional or social or leisure-related purpose.

If I’m in a position where I’m tempted to idly watch television or play a smartphone game (that isn’t side-by-side with one of my kids) or idly surf social media or another website, then it’s a sign that I either need real rest (so I go take a nap) or that I’m trying to fill a small time gap (like five or ten minutes).

That doesn’t mean I don’t see value in idling or clearing my mind – I do, and I’ll get back to how I do that in a bit. It’s just that many of the time-wasters of modern life just don’t help me live the life I want to have, so I consciously keep myself away from them.

This frees up incredible amounts of time. I used to spend lots of time watching television or surfing the web and over the last several years, I’ve basically cut that out of my life. It feels like I have an abundance of time compared to what I used to have. I consider this the single most valuable “hack” I use in terms of getting things done – I simply cut out the idle distractions.

If I catch myself falling into an idle moment, I try to notice it and then I turn to my “quick to-do” list.

But before I get to my “quick to-do,” I wanted to talk a little bit about how I keep track of the bigger tasks in my life.

Managing Things To Be Done

I’m a big believer in getting as much out of my head as possible so I can focus on whatever I’m doing at the moment. Thus, I try, as much as I can, to write down everything I need to remember or need to be doing in some kind of trusted system.

For me, that trusted system is Omnifocus, at least for managing tasks. It contains everything I either need to do or want to do in the future.

Omnifocus is a very … deep to-do list manager. It handles lots of to-do lists at once, and it lets you add tags to items on those to-do lists so that you can pull out specialized views of those tagged items no matter what list they’re on. There are a lot of things you can do with it.

Within Omnifocus, I dump new things I need to do into my “inbox,” which is where I dump general tasks that need to be done or considered soon. Several times a day, I empty out that “inbox,” which means I either do the task (if it’s quick) or I put it somewhere else where it makes sense (like my “quick to-do” list, which I’ll discuss in a minute, or in a list related to a particular project of some kind).

Other than the “quick to-dos” and some specific checklists (another thing I’ll mention in a bit), I try not to be too “granular” with what I put in Omnifocus. The vast majority of things in Omnifocus are on the level of taking at least an hour to complete. For example, my entire process for writing an article is one item in Omnifocus. Doing a research session at the library is one item in Omnifocus. Meal prepping a bunch of meals for the week is one item in Omnifocus. I group them in projects that are either named after the general area of my life – like “Work,” “Marriage,” “Household,” and so on – or after a specific large project – like “Book #3.”

If I feel I ever need to break out one of those big items into smaller pieces, I’ll just stop and do that, adding the smaller items to the list where they belong. Often, this is me breaking off the first piece of a big task and putting it on my “quick to-do” list.

Speaking of which…

The “Quick To-Do” List

I keep a list of things that I need to do in my personal and professional life – I don’t really put in a boundary between the two – that take ten minutes or less.

As I noted above, I manage this list in Omnifocus. I put items on it without any due dates into the projects where they make sense – “Household,” “Work,” “Parenting,” whatever – and tag the tasks with a “10min” tag. Then, I have a perspective set up that allows me to see just those tasks. (Omnifocus is my preferred task manager, as mentioned earlier; here’s how to set up custom perspectives in Omnifocus.)

So, if I have something I need to do that will just take five minutes or so, like ordering a birthday gift for my son or putting chili ingredients in the crock pot or washing martial arts uniforms, I just add it to my “quick to-do” list. Then, when I have a narrow window of time, like when I’m waiting on something or I need a short break from a more complex task, I look at that “quick to-do” list, grab something off of it, and do it.

One item that always remains at the top of my “quick to-do list” is to “process my pocket notebook.” I keep a pocket notebook with me at all times and whenever I have an idea of any kind or want to jot down someone’s contact information or I think of something I need to do, I just write it down there. Then, when I “process” it, I just go through those items, put them where they should be (or take action on them), and cross them out in my notebook.

For me, that little switch – glancing at my “quick to-do” list and just doing something that’s on there – has replaced things like idle web surfing or smartphone games.

What if that “quick to-do” list is empty? That basically never happens, but if it is empty, I’ll just read a novel for ten minutes in the Kindle app on my phone. I legitimately cannot remember the last time that happened, though.

So, how do I handle the bigger tasks of the day and still find time for leisure and social activities?

Time Blocking

The most effective strategy I’ve found for making sure I have time for everything is what I call “time blocking.” Simply put, it means that I mark off significant blocks of contiguous time – at least an hour, but often several hours – to devote to specific activities in my life.

For example, my time blocks for today look like this:
5 AM – 7 AM – Morning Routine
7 AM – 8 AM – Family Time
8 AM – 3 PM – Work
3 PM – 4 PM – Family Time
4 PM – 8 PM – Evening Routine
8 PM – 9 PM – Catch-Up and Review
9 PM – 10 PM – Marital Time
10 PM – Sleep

This Sunday, my time looks like this:
5:30 AM – 7:30 AM – Morning Routine
7:30 AM – 8 AM – Weekly Review
8 AM – 11 AM – Family Time
11 AM – 2 PM – Household Time
2 PM – 5 PM – Family Time
5 PM – 9 PM – Leisure Time (community board game night)
9 PM – 10 PM – Marital Time
10 PM – Sleep

Those different blocks have different meanings.

My morning routine is a sequence of things I do to get ready for the day ahead. I’ll talk about that more in a bit.

Family time means I’m spending focused time on family members, usually my children. This will include things like helping kids with homework, encouraging everyone to have a bit of chill time after school where we sit down and read a book, going to a soccer game, taking a kid to practice, and so on.

Marital time involves time spent just with Sarah, usually after the kids are in bed. We’ll watch a television show together or read together while cuddled up or play a board game or do something romantic. During the school year, this ends up being work time about twice a week, but we do it in the same room, often sitting close to each other. I usually brainstorm ideas during that time.

My evening routine varies a lot from day to day, but it usually involves making dinner, cleaning up from dinner, reviewing the day, making sure family members are at their various activities and picked up, and so on. I often fit in a lot of those “10min” tasks mentioned earlier in this timeframe.

Leisure time is time set aside for my own intellectual growth and hobbies. I usually have two brief evening blocks for this during the week and a couple of longer blocks most weekends, though it’s sometimes supplanted by or overlaps with social time.

Household time means – you guessed it – cleaning house and doing minor household repairs. I’ll clean the kitchen or do dishes or change the bedsheets or fix a leaky faucet or something like that. I usually keep important but not vitally urgent household tasks on a checklist and burn through that checklist during household time.

I keep all of this straight using Google Calendar and Due. Google Calendar actually holds my full schedule with all of these blocks and my various appointments, which overlap the blocks of time.

However, Due fills a very interesting role for me. It gives me gentle reminders that a block of time is winding up or that I should be thinking about something specific.

Part of the goal of a long block of time, particularly for work, is that I want to fall into a flow state, which is both super-productive and feels really good. However, I don’t usually want to persist in that flow state outside of my time blocks, so I nudge myself out of them near the end of the time block so I can wrap up whatever it is I’m doing. I have Due give me a gentle chime about 10 minutes before a block of time is finished, and that bypasses my “do not disturb” settings that I often set up, especially during work blocks.

You’ll probably notice “weekly review” as one of my Sunday items, so let’s talk about weekly reviews a little bit. A weekly review is one where I go through everything in my main organizational tools to make sure everything there still makes sense, set up what I think my time blocks will look like for the week to come, figure out my biggest goals for the coming week, and do some big picture thinking. While my time block for it is 30 minutes long, I usually wind up starting it a little earlier, so it usually gets 45 minutes to an hour. This review is essential. I rely a ton on the outcomes of this review over the following week, as it often guides a lot of what I choose to do each day for that week.

As you may have noticed, I use checklists for some things, so let’s talk about that a little bit.

Routinizing the Time Blocks

For some of my time blocks, I use a checklist so that I take care of specific things in that block. The most clear example of this is my morning routine, where I work through several things each morning during that block.

My morning routine checklist consists of:
+ Fill and drink a water bottle
+ Do 10 minutes of stretching
+ Meditate for 10-15 minutes
+ Write “three morning pages” in my journal
+ Review my Google Calendar and make sure Due matches it
+ Review my to-do list for today
+ Do about 20 minutes of vigorous exercise, which is just a calisthenics routine (planks, push-ups, etc.) along with a bunch of taekwondo movements
+ Take a shower and get dressed
+ Brush my teeth
+ Make the bed
+ Take a few vitamins
+ Set up my workspace, which means refilling my electric tea kettle, getting out a coffee mug and putting it on my desk, setting up my iPad as a second monitor on my desk, opening up the working apps I use, and resetting my morning routine checklist for tomorrow

This takes a little less than two hours. Most weekday mornings, I finish this around 6:45 AM (though sometimes making the bed waits until the end, depending on when Sarah arises). I just go through this checklist each morning. I use Omnifocus for it most of the time as I tweak it occasionally, but it’s getting so fixed that I may print it off and laminate it, using a dry erase marker as I go through it.

The reason I use such a firm checklist is because I don’t want to have to think about what I’m doing in the morning. I want to think instead about the tasks themselves rather than trying to remember which task is next.

I have a shorter “evening routine” checklist. I also have a “household time” checklist that includes several things I want to at least consider doing every time I have a block of household time, things like “look at my house and auto maintenance schedule and see if anything needs to be done.”

What About Spontaneity?

When I’ve described this system to people in the recent past, they always ask about spontaneity. “Where is the room to do something unexpected?” they ask.

Honestly, a lot of weekdays don’t give me much room for spontaneity outside of a few narrow blocks of time during the day. It’s the weekend that usually affords a lot of spontaneity.

What I’ve found is that this whole system frees up a lot of time on the weekends, letting me have giant blocks of family and leisure time, and I fill those in a very spontaneous fashion. I can wake up on Saturday morning and we can decide to go to a state park two hours away, go on a long hike there, and have a picnic lunch, and I’m not abandoning anything of importance.

The thing is, I don’t want to be spontaneous when there are things that need to get done. All that spontaneity means in those situations is that I have to come back to an even bigger pile of stuff that needs to get done as soon as possible. It gives that spontaneity an underlying taste of bitter stress that can really ruin the whole thing for me. I’d rather have my spontaneity and leisure time when my plate is mostly clean so that I don’t feel subtly stressed about what is to come.

It’s also worth noting that I’m often at least somewhat spontaneous within each of those blocks. During my working blocks, for example, if I’m struggling with writing, I’ll go for a walk.

What About Overwhelming Days?

Another aspect that people often bring up when I mention this system to them is the sense of being overwhelmed by weekdays. I’ll be the first to admit that I stuff my weekdays to the gills, but there are a few key factors that make them manageable.

First, I prioritize sleep. I aim for seven to eight hours a night during the week and more than 8 a night on the weekends. I know quite well that I operate really poorly on five or six hours of sleep; I feel alert, but I’m not productive and extremely prone to wasting time. Good sleep is the difference maker.

Second, my morning routine is all about getting me physically and mentally ready to get things done all day long. I exercise. I get hydrated. I get myself in a great mental state. I prep for my day. That preparatory time is huge. On the occasions when I dive right into the tasks of the day rather than doing those things, I get less done – substantially less – even though I have two more hours to do things.

Third, at the end of a day where I got a lot of things done, I feel incredibly great going to bed. I don’t feel that way at the end of days where I wasted time or spent a lot of time idling without purpose. I also tend to sleep really well.

Finally, by staying on top of all of the spheres of my life, I am able to pretty easily handle the unexpected. Last week, I had a car repair issue that could have really disrupted a lot of things, but because I’m largely on top of the things I need to do, I was able to handle it really easily. All of my work was available on my laptop, I didn’t have anything that was incredibly pressing that needed to get done, and so I just rolled right through it.

A Summary of My Tools and Final Thoughts

I wanted to finish up this post with a list of the tools that I used to get things done, along with a brief summary of my system.

Omnifocus is my to-do list manager. Within it, I maintain a bunch of to-do lists and checklists of various kinds. Whenever there’s something I need to do, I put it in Omnifocus. Whenever I complete a task, I check Omnifocus to see what I need to do next. For a low-cost alternative that’s pretty good, I recommend Todoist.

Google Calendar is how I maintain my actual schedule. I put in actual appointments well in advance. At the start of each week, I set up “time blocks” in Google Calendar that take into account the scheduled appointments for the week. Each day, I review the time blocks for the day ahead, adjust them a little as needed, and set up alarms and such for the end of each block.

Due is kind of a supplement to Omnifocus and Google Calendar, but I don’t use it to track tasks or scheduled events. Rather, I use it for “nudges,” meaning that it reminds me of things I should be thinking about or aware of. For example, it usually nudges me near the end of a long block of time that I should be wrapping things up, or it nudges me around the time I should start thinking about supper prep. I usually set up these “nudges” at the start of the day when I’m reviewing the things I need to do for the day and the program will “nudge” me throughout the day at appropriate times. The key is to not have them be too repetitive or else they become easy to ignore.

Evernote is where I keep track of all of the pieces of information I want to return to later. It’s kind of like an electronic filing cabinet of ideas, brainstorms, and other things like that. When I have a to-do that relates to something I know is in Evernote, I give it an “en” tag. I have been dabbling with a couple of Evernote alternatives, namely Notion and DEVONThink,but I’m sticking with Evernote mostly because of the work it would take to switch systems.

A pocket notebook and a pen travel with me everywhere I go. I usually keep it open on the desk in front of me when I’m working – in fact, it’s open in front of me right now. When I have an idea or hear something I want to remember or get someone’s contact information, it goes into my pocket notebook. Pretty much anything that I want to think about again in the future goes into that pocket notebook with enough detail jotted down so that I’ll recall what it was when I see that note. A few times a day, I go through that pocket notebook and transfer everything to one of the appropriate places above (Omnifocus, Evernote, or Google Calendar, or sometimes a combination of the three).

A quick note about contact information: if I get someone’s contact info, I usually create a note in Evernote to store everything they gave me – a picture of their business card or just text that includes their name, email, social media handles, phone number, and so forth. I also include a bit of extra info about them – who they are, what I want to remember about them, things to touch base on, and so on. I’ll often follow that person right away on social media, add their email to my email program (Gmail), and add their phone number to my phone. I usually add a task to Omnifocus to follow up with that person in the next day or two, setting a due date on that task. At that point, I cross off that new contact info in my pocket notebook.

The reality of all of these digital and analog tools is that they form an “external brain” for me. They take a lot of stuff out of my head that would ordinarily be floating around in my head – tasks to do, information about people, ideas I have, things I should be thinking about, future plans, and so on – and gets them into a trusted system. The end result of that is that when I’m actively working on a task, those things aren’t cluttering up my brain. I know they’re in a trusted system of some kind – it’s in my pocket notebook, at the very least, and if it’s more than a few hours old, it’s in Omnifocus or Google Calendar or Evernote or some social app.

That enhanced ability to focus on the task at hand, to not have to actively think about what’s next when I’m doing something, and to always have the next step at the ready at the click of a mouse enables me to blow through a lot of tasks in a day. Separating the planning and consideration of what I’m going to do from the actual doing is a revelation.

In fact, there are really only two things that your system, whatever it might be, needs to be able to do. First, you have to absolutely trust that your contains everything you need to know and everything you need to do in places where you can find it easily. The system described above is just what happens to work for me; something less (or more) complex might work better for you. I have a good friend who keeps track of everything in Google Calendar and a paper notebook. Second, it needs to enable you to separate planning from doing and turn them into separate tasks, so that you’re not working on “planning” in the back of your mind when you should be giving your full focus to “doing.” The less you’re thinking about “planning,” the more efficiently you go about “doing,” the more likely you are to slip into a flow state while you’re doing it, and the faster you get done with better quality results.

Once you’ve done this, “planning” moves to a completely separate activity, and then you find yourself “planning” at higher and higher levels. Daily planning remains important, but then you start doing weekly planning and monthly planning. You start look at the amount of time, over long periods, that you devote to certain things in your life and you begin to wonder whether you’re getting value out of it. A few hours of television on a lazy night doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if it’s a daily occurrence, that’s 100 hours a month lost in front of the television. Imagine if you made yourself get up and take care of things during those periods – you’d have 100 hours of time a month to block off for deeply meaningful leisure on the weekends. For me, that became huge motivation to do a meal prep on a weeknight instead of browsing Netflix or browsing the internet, and if I was legitimately too tired to make that choice, well, then it’s time to go to bed.

This is the recipe. This is how I manage to have a career, a good marriage, three kids, a house that needs maintenance, older parents, a decent social life, some community commitments, and still find time for big blocks of leisure on the weekends without just throwing money at problems. It comes down to getting tasks and thoughts out of my head, genuinely resting when I’m tired, doing things when I’m not, and blocking off time for things that are meaningful to me. It’s an integrated system that works.

Good luck!

The post How I Get Things Done, Personally and Professionally appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Gamers: Your Video Game Hobby Can Also Earn You Real Income

It was overtime, a tight match-up between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants. The Giants had third-and-3 at their own 30.

Then, a miracle play: a catch-and-run with a perfectly executed juke of a Philly defender. The announcer screamed, “We have a walk-off. Ten. Five. Touchdown!”

Christian Lomenzo, 21, set his controller down in shock. He stood up, put on his Giants cap and raised the Madden Challenge Championship belt above his head. He had just won his first major video game tournament.

And $35,000.

When Lomenzo started playing games at 8 years old, he never thought of gaming as a career path or a way to make money. Like most Americans, he played for fun and with friends. Even until the very last play of the Madden NFL championship, he wasn’t really thinking about the money.

“Going into the tournament, and during the tournament and even during the play before I won, the last thing on my mind was winning,” said Lomenzo, who goes by the moniker Chitobin online. “All I was thinking about was getting the first down.”

Video game tournaments, such as Electronic Arts’ (EA) Madden Championships, have never been more popular, and gaming companies are raking in the profits. Though it’s considered a pillar company of the gaming industry, EA’s competitions are dwarfed by companies like Riot Games, the makers of League of Legends, and Blizzard, the makers of StarCraft and Warcraft. Their esports events are international spectacles.

But First, What Are Esports?

Simply put, esports are video game tournaments with highly skilled players who are considered  athletes. EA flew Lomenzo to California for an all-expenses-paid trip to play in the Madden Championships at its brand new, state-of-the-art esports broadcast studio. For international tournaments, players are granted esports visas to travel and compete.

The video games themselves don’t necessarily have anything to do with actual sports. Some of the most popular games are called Massive Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs), which are usually fantasy or sci-fi in nature, or First Person Shooters (FPS), which tend to be more realistic, wartime games — or a mixture of both. (See: Apex Legends and Overwatch.) These games are typically played on the PC and are team-based. They have objectives as simple as eliminating the other team or as complex as plotting hours-long strategies to capture an opponent’s base.

They’re approachable enough for everyday gamers to play, but professionals spend thousands of hours learning the intricacies of the games’ design to develop heightened reflexes and sophisticated strategies.

Of course, there are plenty of video games about sports too, like FIFA, Madden, NBA 2K and UFC. Just like real sports, there are millions of fans who to tune in online to watch these virtual athletes running, kicking and wrestling.

But those MOBA tournaments are more popular A lot more. Hundreds of millions of worldwide fans watch them, rivaling the viewership of real-life sporting events.

The 2018 League of Legends World Championship was held in South Korea, and at its peak reached 200 million viewers. The 2018 Super Bowl, by contrast, drew a little more than 103 million.

What all this means is that there are ever-growing ways to make money playing video games — but not only in playing them. Video-game-related careers are surging. For big-ticket tournaments, there’s a need for announcers, scouters, coaches, marketers, broadcasters and all of the necessary people to create and maintain the video game. Augmented reality, virtual reality and video game data analytics are career paths poised to explode in the near future, as well.

Esports Earnings

By winning the penultimate Madden Championship, Lomenzo raked in $35,000 and automatically qualified for one of 16 spots in the Madden Bowl. The first-place prize for that competition is $40,000, but every contestant on the roster is guaranteed something. Even the player who places 16 out of 16 will walk away with $5,000.

Compared to the bigger tournaments, the Madden Bowl’s cash prizes are peanuts. The winners of the 2018 League of Legends (LoL) championship earned $2.4 million (out of a prize pool of about $6.5 million). In LoL, the teams include five players, meaning each player could win upward of $500,000 for the championship match.

Later this year, Epic Games is holding the first ever Fortnite World Cup in New York City, and it’s offering a total cash prize of $100 million over the course of all qualifying rounds, finals and the main event. In 2018 alone, Epic Games banked $3 billion in revenue for a game that is completely free to download and play.

As video games become a prime source of entertainment, the industry is making more money than it knows what to do with.

Edward Castronova, a video-game economist, author and media studies professor at Indiana University, predicts that by the mid 2020s, these free-to-play gaming companies will actually pay casual users to play.

In a whitepaper Castronova penned in 2016, he argued that the effects of automation and AI will transform video gaming into a viable job option for displaced workers. And his predictions already seem to be coming true.

Such large cash payouts for tournaments are evidence that the gaming industry is flirting with a business model that pays its players. But what Castronova expects to see is not the pros getting all the money, but the everyday gamers.

“The companies will pay them small amounts to just be there, in the game, while the big shots make all the noise,” Castronova said. “Those [casual gamers] are the people who will have viable low-wage jobs from video games.”

To prepare for this future economic shift, “pay as much attention to your gaming literacy as you do to literature, art, music and film,” Castronova said.

In the meantime, gamers who are looking to earn money will have to make do with a more sporadic payment system.

Video Game Tournaments That Pay

Let’s be clear: Most gamers won’t make $35,000 per match. Such big prizes are reserved for an elite few. However, there are video game tournaments that reward above-average players with prize money.

That’s how Lomenzo got his start. Before his days of Madden fame, he would make a few bucks here and there in smaller video game tournaments.

“I really like playing against other people to win something,” Lomenzo said. “I would just play for $1 wagers when I was 14 years old.“

And as he grew, so did his cash prizes.

Pro Tip

Start in small video game tournaments to sharpen your skills and earn some cash along the way.

Below are some tournament websites that Lomenzo used to get his bearings. You can earn anywhere from $1 to $10,000 per match.

(Note: some states such as Arizona, Iowa and Louisiana ban cash-prize competitions. Users who pay to enter a competition must be at least 18 years old.)

GamerSaloon

A broad mix of tournaments are available on GamerSaloon. Typical, small matches could earn you $9, whereas the larger tournaments pay up to $10,000. Several matches require a small entry fee, which goes into the cash pot. But if you don’t want to fork over any money, stick to the free-entry tournaments.

Trending Games: Apex Legends, Call of Duty, FIFA, Fortnite, NBA, NFL and UFC

Gaming Systems Accepted: PCs and most consoles

MLG GameBattles

Not all winnings in MLG GameBattles are cash. Some tournaments pay in achievements, trophies or credits. The tournaments that do pay cash can be quite lucrative. It’s common to see daily competitions with prizes of $100 to $400.

Trending Games: Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Fortnite and Gears of War
Gaming Systems Accepted: PCs and most consoles

Players’ Lounge

If you got beef with another gamer, Players’ Lounge is the place to settle it. Here, you can challenge other players to a head-to-head match and make a wager from $2.50 to $500. Or, if you’d prefer, join tournaments at your leisure. You get free admission to your first tournament, after that, it typically costs $1 to join a cash-prize match.

Trending Games: Apex Legends, Fortnite, Madden and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds  

Gaming Systems Accepted: PC, PS4 or Xbox One

World Gaming

With over 3 million registered gamers, World Gaming is one of the largest competitive gaming websites. It hosts both free-to-enter and pay-to-enter tournaments with varying cash or token prizes. Weekly tournaments offer cash prizes typically between $100 and $200.

Trending Games: Apex Legends, FIFA, Fortnite, Hearthstone, Madden and Super Smash Bros

Gaming Systems Accepted: PCs, smartphones and most consoles

XY Gaming

Both a marketplace for virtual video-game items and a competitive gaming platform, XY Gaming runs on virtual coins and cash. There are free-to-play tournaments with cash or coin prizes every month. Or, you can use your coins (you get 2,300 for signing up) and cash to join tournaments daily. If you’re feeling extra competitive, feel free to challenge other users to a head-to-head battle.

Trending Games: Dota 2, League of Legends and Smite

Gaming Systems Accepted: PCs and most consoles

While Lomenzo remains hopeful his recent Madden win is the beginning of a long career in esports, he’s deciding to play it safe: He’ll practice gaming when he has the time.

For now, his main focus is graduating from Florida Polytechnic University with a bachelor’s degree in business analytics.

Adam Hardy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. He writes about the gig economy and ways to make money that don’t involve stuffy, corporate offices. Read his ​full bio here​, or say hi on Twitter @hardyjournalism.

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.

source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2PvhhR3

US Economy Grew at Strong 3.2% Rate in First Quarter, Exceeding Expectations

The U.S. economy grew at a solid 3.2% annual rate in the first three months of the year, a far better outcome than expected, overcoming a host of headwinds including global weakness, rising trade tensions and a partial government shutdown.

Source CBNNews.com http://bit.ly/2J48moi

Our Financial Reality and the Value of Financial Principles

Over the last few months, I’ve seen a great deal of criticism of various financial and frugal bloggers who have achieved financial independence of some kind, arguing that their stories of being frugal and careful with their money and the strategies they share are somehow tainted because they earned a high income. Today, I wanted to address those ideas.

For starters, if someone has a good frugal idea, I don’t care if their annual income is $10,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year. A good idea is a good idea and I’ll happily use it. If someone making $450,000 a year suggests that it’s a good idea to cut your spending a little by re-evaluating all of your monthly bills one by one and deciding if you really need this streaming service or that gym membership, the idea isn’t suddenly a bad one because the person with a high income is suggesting it. It is a good idea because it’s a good idea – it works.

That being said, it is true that someone in a very, very different financial situation than my own is probably less likely to suggest a financial strategy that makes sense for me. If someone is making 10% of what I do, their financial reality is probably substantially different than mine and the financial decisions and cuts they make are going to not be applicable to my life. The same is true, of someone making ten times what I do – cutting my monthly budget for artisanal cheese delivery is not going to be something that has any real use for me.

However, the core principle behind all of those strategies, whether the person is making 10% of our income or 10 times our income, is the same. It’s still all about figuring out which expenses really aren’t all that important to me and which expenses are important to me. It’s just the threshold of “important enough to spend money on” is going to be different for each of us.

That being said, I feel like – and have always felt like – Sarah and I are in the ballpark of the average American family. We earn a little bit more than the average American household income, but if either Sarah or I were out of work, our income would be below that average. We have three kids, which are an enormous drain on our financial resources in terms of extra food costs, health care costs, household costs, space costs, educational costs, and so on.

I’ve really only felt that Sarah and I have had an exceptional household income for a couple of years during our adult lives, and that’s when I was simultaneously working at a full-time job with travel requirements while also launching a small business on the side and maintaining another one. I was practically killing myself during that period of our life and I soon decided it wasn’t worth it, so we made some lifestyle changes that severely cut our income. Trust me, working 100 hours a week every week without any breaks for years burns you out in almost every way.

While we might be earning somewhat more than some readers of The Simple Dollar, it’s not orders of magnitude more. At the same time, I know we earn less than some readers of The Simple Dollar. I feel like our financial situation is at least comparable to the vast majority of Americans.

Here’s the thing, though: Regardless of what specific financial tips I’m sharing, I really want to expose the principle underneath, the one that’s applicable to as many people as possible. For example, I recently wrote an article about our experience cutting the cord and eliminating cable television. While I talked a lot about the specific things we did during this process, I was even more interested in the principles behind it: Why did we cut the cable? What was the general process like? What did we consider when choosing which entertainment services to retain?

The reason is that, as I noted above, everyone’s lives are different. There isn’t someone out there exactly like me, and there isn’t someone out there exactly like you. We’re all going to have different interests, different considerations, different income levels, and so on. My parents, for example, are in a different situation with a different income level and they came to a different conclusion about cutting out cable.

What matters most when we share ideas for a better life are the principles, the broader rules that can be used to guide us to the best decision given the specifics of our lives. The only reason I tell my own stories at all is to try to give an example of those principles at work in the life of someone who, though they’re not exactly like you, is hopefully at least somewhat relatable.

So, what’s the take-home message here?

My belief is that personal finance articles are most useful when you can pull principles out of them that you can use in your own life. You can combine an awful lot of specific tips down to a few guiding principles, and those principles line up with the specifics of your own life to guide you to good financial results. They may guide different people with different lives to different conclusions.

At the same time, showing those principles at work in someone’s real life, even if it’s not my own, can be really useful. So, for me, I want to be shown the generally applicable principle, and then show me how it applies in someone’s real life. Even if it’s not my own, the example makes it clearer and more relatable.

The more specific an article gets with tips, the fewer the number of people that will get value out of those tips. While I like big lists of tips, I find that I discard most of them because they’re just not applicable to my life. Even worse, a lot of them are very timely, which means that in a few years, that article won’t be valuable. That’s why I don’t write big lists of tips all that often, and when I do, I’m usually trying to point at some underlying principles along the way.

When you’re reading a personal finance article written by me or anyone, including myself, look for the principles you can use in your life. How can I make better financial decisions in my life? How does this particular tool help me, and if it doesn’t, can I safely ignore it? How is this person applying those principles in their life, and does that make sense, and does that relate to how I might apply them in my own life?

Don’t get hung up on whether the other person’s life story is substantially different than yours. Instead, look for those core principles; almost everyone out there applies many of the same principles in their lives. I use a lot of strategies and principles that would work just fine if I were earning $10K a year or if I were earning $500K a year.

Remember, not everything will apply to you and your life. When you don’t feel like it applies, step back and try to see the bigger picture. It might fit better than you think.

Good luck!

Read more by Trent Hamm:

• What Is Wealth in America?
• Principles
• The Rich Man, the Average Budget, and You

The post Our Financial Reality and the Value of Financial Principles appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://bit.ly/2ZAJp9U

Dear Penny: I Paid Off My Debt With a Loan. Should I Do It Again?

Dear J.,

People who are working to pay off debt have two experiences over and over: They second-guess their actions up to this point, wondering if they’ve done the right things. Then, they have a nagging feeling that they should be doing much more to improve their finances.

You’re feeling both of these at the same time, and they’re eclipsing the fact that you did something very right: You consolidated your debt under a lower interest rate and made a plan to pay it off for good.

But seeing the impact of your good choices can be difficult when it comes to the ever-fluctuating world of credit scores.

Let me give you an example from my own life to show you why I think slow and steady wins this race.

A few months ago, I took out a personal loan to consolidate some credit card debt that had ridiculously high interest rates. When my first credit card got marked “paid off” by the credit bureaus, my credit score increased by 17 points. When the second credit card showed it was “paid” a few weeks later, my credit score went up another 12 points.

Then, more than a month after I opened that personal loan to take on the balance, it showed up on my credit report… and my score dropped 18 points. I ended up right where I started.

Will I regain those points once I pay down a significant portion of my personal loan? Sure. Does everyone hate seeing a score they know could be higher? Totally.

Those credit score fluctuations have the potential to control your mood. And thanks to the online tools that have made it increasingly easy to see and understand our credit score on a regular basis, it’s tempting to fixate on our scores. Instead of focusing on our payment history and overall credit health, we’re panicking about that magic number.

A better plan for you: Stay the course with your current loan and strive to pay it off early. Instead of constantly trying to rearrange your debt, focus on tackling the balance and getting it out of your life. Doing so will have the greatest long-term impact on your credit score and your financial health.

You’re already well on your way.

Have a tricky money question? Write to Dear Penny and you might see your question answered in an upcoming column.

Lisa Rowan is a personal finance expert and senior writer at The Penny Hoarder, and the voice behind Dear Penny.

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.

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

Fancy Yourself a Poet? Submit Your Work to These Sites and Get Paid

Should I tell HMRC that I sold my home in Australia?

Question

I am worried that I am in trouble with the taxman. When I moved back to the UK after 21 years in Australia, I did not inform HMRC when I transferred money from the sale of my sole residence there to the UK and bought my sole residence here. It was 10 years ago, but do I need to inform HMRC now?

From

JK/Tunbridge Wells

HMRC has the power to go back up to 20 years when digging for evidence that someone has failed to notify them of a liability. It could then raise a penalty based on any tax that was due. However, it doesn’t sound like you need to worry.

You would not be charged UK tax if you were not a resident. You are automatically non-resident if you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK in the previous year. This rises to 46 days if you haven’t been classed as a UK resident for the three previous tax years.

Alternatively, if you worked abroad full-time for a tax year and spent fewer than 91 days in the UK, of which no more than 30 were spent working, you would also be classed as a non-resident.

Ten years ago, the test was different. Provided you spent no more than 91 days in the UK on average in a tax year, then you were likely to be classed as non-resident and therefore not liable for tax.

As with all tax rules, there is an exception. Some non-residents have to pay capital gains tax on some foreign gains on their return to the UK after living abroad.

If you were subject to UK tax, and provided your Australian home was your only and main residence, you would qualify for principal private residence relief. This would wipe out the gain and any penalty arising from a failure to disclose it to HMRC. So, either way, you are unlikely to be in trouble with the taxman.

 

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This article was written in response to a reader’s question. If you have a financial or work/career question that has left you scratching your head ask our panel of experts who will aim to shine some light on the matter.

Source Moneywise http://bit.ly/2ZxZ8qx

Plan ahead rather than tackling legal paperwork in a panic

It’s time to turn to the thorny subject of lasting power of attorney (LPA). No, don’t turn the page – it’s worth carrying on reading this.

That’s because it’s something that any of us may have to face in the future, either because we need to need to look after someone else’s financial affairs or want someone to look after ours.

In order to make an LPA, a person must have the mental capacity to agree to the legal terms, and that usually means planning ahead for a future eventuality. Delaying thinking about these issues could cause problems later on.

There are two types of LPA: one for property and financial affairs and the other health and welfare. Both are often needed, as they tend to be used by elderly people.

That was the case with reader DD of Bristol. She wrote to Moneywise about problems with an LPA for her aunt.

She said: “My aunt is 92 years old and a widow with no children. She did not ensure a family member was present during interviews with representatives of equity release firm Key, or indeed to pass the information to a family member to check.”

DD reported that her aunt took out an equity release agreement on her home for £30,000 in 2015 “and it seems as part of the package Key offered to administer the application for an LPA at a cost of £669, which I understand was taken from the equity release”.

Both types of LPAs were drafted with DD herself given authority, but then a problem developed.

DD said: “The application was typed up and posted back to her. While there was a notice within the package regarding the timeline, she was not in good health so would not have been in a fit state to understand or act upon the written instructions.

“I was asked some time before if I would act as power of attorney for her, but, as I hadn’t heard anything; decided not to press her. However, when I was handed the pack, it was clear she wasn’t aware she had to sign the LPA documents and return them before 31 December 2015.”

DD contacted Key, only to be told that because the deadline had passed, the LPAs would have to be redrafted for an additional fee.

She told me: “I challenged Key about their ethics, regarding financial discussions with a 92-year-old with no family member present, and clearly she was not aware she had to action this within a timescale. I also challenged it as she paid £669 for this, and would incur additional charges if she had to reapply.”

DD claimed: “Key was extremely unsympathetic and very unhelpful.”

More than three years later, her aunt is now in a nursing home, so the need for an LPA has become urgent. DD contacted Moneywise for help, and I asked her what outcome she sought.

DD told me: “The best outcome would be a lasting power of attorney, to enable me to support my aunt with her affairs.”

I had a long chat with Key about the case and, as you’d guess its story was a little different. But in this instance, their story makes sense, and the problems seem to have arisen mainly through a possible lack of understanding.

The sticking point seems to have been the moment in early 2016 when the deadline to return the completed LPAs had passed. But that wasn’t a deadline set by Key, but was there because the forms issued by the Office of the Public Guardian changed at the turn of the year.

It meant that if the forms weren’t submitted by the end of 2015, the LPAs would have to be redrafted using the new forms. Key has listened back to the conversations between its staff and DD at the time and told me that it offered to redraft the forms at a nominal fee, of just £69. It told me DD refused the offer and told its representative that she could do it for free online. It then heard nothing until this year.

DD disputed that version of events: “I do recall the conversations with Key and this was not advised,” she claimed.

I asked Key if it would still be prepared to redraft the LPAs for a nominal fee and it agreed. I put DD in touch with senior staff to finally complete the process, which could have simply been done three years ago.

DD was also concerned about being able to afford the official fees charged by the Office of the Public Guardian to register the documents. It charges £82 to register each one, which means finding a total of £164.

However it is possible to apply for a reduction or exemption on the official LPA charges, which is offered to people on certain benefits. I’ve passed on that information to DD, but you can find it at Gov.uk/government/publications/power-of-attorney-fees.

The main lesson is that it’s essential to understand what’s going on and not delay when it comes to LPAs. 

I reckon Key’s offer back in 2016 was fair and if DD had taken it up then, all would have been well now. But she was clearly thrown into a panic this year when her aunt went into a nursing home.

Hopefully, we’ve eased both their minds, but the panic could have been avoided by sorting things out sensibly three years ago.

OUTCOME: Key redrafts reader’s aunt’s LPAs for a nominal fee

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

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Liberty Home Guard Review

Liberty Home Guard aims to provide its customers with a smart and convenient way to protect their homes.

The home warranty company takes its customers seriously, doing everything it can to resolve their problems.

Liberty Home Guard empowers its clientele by giving them the ability to make decisions regarding their home warranty.

For example, Liberty Home Guard gives its customers the choice to decide whether they want to repair an item or simply have it replaced.

They want to provide you with the necessary tools to keep your home safe. As a result, no matter what the problem, Liberty Home Guard is always available to help you.

Coverage Features

Liberty Home Guard protects your home in many ways. With its comprehensive plans and helpful tools, Liberty Home Guard makes our list of the best home warranty companies.

Here are just a few of our favorite features you’ll get with a Liberty Home Guard home warranty.

No-Hassle Contractor Locator

With Liberty Home Guard, you don’t have to spend time online trying to find the right professional for help.

Reading reviews and getting quotes is tedious and wastes your time.

Let Liberty Home Guard do the research for you, and you’ll have a qualified contractor at your home in no time.

60-Day Promise

Sometimes problems aren’t thoroughly fixed the first go around.

As a result, Liberty Home Guard promises that if your issue arises again with 60 days, they’ll send out another professional to take care of the problem. They do this at no charge to you.

No Limits on Coverage

Liberty Home Guard knows that there’s a bit of truth to the old cliché “when it rains, it pours.” That’s why they don’t limit the number of claims you can make each year.

If everything goes south at the same time, Liberty Home Guard wants you to know they’ve got your back.

Automatic Renewal

If you sign up for automatic payments with Liberty Home Guard, you’ll get a renewal notice 30 days prior to the end of your contract.

Signing up for automatic payments means you don’t have to worry about your coverage lapsing or your home not having the protection it needs in the event of an emergency.

Warranty Plans

Liberty Home Guard provides several home warranty plans for its customers.

If you need help determining which plan makes the most sense for you, Liberty Home Guard will provide you with a free quote.

No matter which plan you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the coverage you need with Liberty Home Guard.

Appliance Warranty

The Appliance Warranty plan will cost you $39.99 a month or $399.99 each year. This plan protects the appliances in your home.

While it’s not a comprehensive plan, it does provide coverage for important things like your dishwasher, washer and dryer, refrigerator, oven, and more.

Systems Guard

You’ll pay $49.99 a month or $499.99 annually for the Systems Guard plan.

This plan covers all the major systems in your home. So if your heating, air conditioning, plumbing, or electrical systems go haywire, you’ll have peace of mind in knowing that Liberty Home Guard has them covered.

Total Home Guard

The Total Home Guard offers you the best of both worlds. You’ll get the coverage of both the Appliance Warranty and the Systems Guard all in one plan.

Total Home Guard costs $59.99 each month or $599.99 every year. Everything listed in the previous plans is covered under the Total Home Guard plan.

Add-Ons

Liberty Home Guard customers also have add-on options they can include in their home warranty plan.

This includes items like the following:

• Pool and Spa coverage
• Sump Pump coverage
• Septic System coverage
• Second refrigerator or a stand-alone freezer

Additionally, keep in mind that Liberty Home Guard does not provide national coverage, so rates may change based on your location.

The Good

Liberty Home Guard has plenty of great benefits. Here are some of the ones we like most.

Customer Support

Liberty Home Guard has a courteous and knowledgeable customer support team waiting to help you anytime you have a problem.

The team will go above and beyond to assist you when you run into an issue, even if it’s not covered in your current plan. This is what sets Liberty Home Guard apart from other home warranty companies.

No-Risk Contract

When choosing to use Liberty Home Guard for your home warranty needs, you’re under no obligation to sign a contract.

If you just want to try out one of the plans, you’re free to cancel at any time.

Even if you’re in the middle of a claim, Liberty Home Guard will refund your money excluding any services you’ve already received.

Multiple Contract Options

If you decide to pay for your home warranty coverage a year at a time, Liberty Home Guard gives you two months free.

However, customers also have the option to go month to month if that’s the option that works best for them.

Additionally, Liberty Home Guard offers a multi-year alternative that saves customers the most money on their plans.

No Inspection Necessary

Some home warranty companies require a home inspection before accepting a customer. That’s not the case with Liberty Home Guard.

It doesn’t matter how old or what condition your systems or appliances are. Liberty Home Guard does not require an inspection or maintenance information in order to provide coverage for your home.

Change Plans Easily

If you’re within the first month of your contract, Liberty Home Guard will let you change your plan.

If you discover that you need more coverage, or the coverage you chose is simply too much, Liberty Home Guard will allow you to adjust your plan as needed.

Painless Claims Process

If you need to file a claim with Liberty Home Guard, all you must do is hop online or grab your phone. They’ll help you find the right professional to take care of your problem.

When everything is taken care of, Liberty will reach back out to you to ensure that you’re satisfied with your experience.

The Bad

Unfortunately, Liberty Home Guard is only available in certain states.

While the home warranty company does cover a large portion of the United States, it should be stated that it doesn’t cover everyone.

However, Liberty Home Guard can focus on those areas in which it does provide service, which makes them the experts for those locations.

Liberty Home Guard does require that they send out one of their professionals for every claim you make. Most of the time, this won’t be a problem and is actually a good thing.

However, there may be an instance when you already have an established relationship with a contractor or service professional and would rather use them as opposed to the person Liberty Home Guard sends out.

Alternatives to Liberty Home Guard Review

Be sure to consider some of the top alternatives to Liberty Home Guard as you shop for your home warranty.

The Bottom Line

Even though Liberty Home Guard doesn’t provide nationwide service, it still offers comprehensive home warranty coverage to its customers.

It provides great features and benefits to its customers and does so with a professional and courteous staff.

Liberty Home Guard users have several plan options from which they can choose and have the flexibility to change their plan within the first 30 days of their contract.

If you’re looking for a home warranty, Liberty Home Guard is a great way to go.

The post Liberty Home Guard Review appeared first on Good Financial Cents®.

Source Good Financial Cents® http://bit.ly/2PrMHI7

College Students: Here’s Your Cheat Sheet to Budgeting 101

We Found the 26 Best Ideas for Home-Based Businesses in 2019

Four Fermented Foods I Love to Make at Home

A few years ago, my wife bought me a copy of The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz. She knew that I loved to experiment with foods and unusual recipes and figured I’d enjoy digging into this book, especially since there was a long tradition in my family of making homemade sauerkraut.

She was absolutely right.

Making fermented foods and beverages has developed into a low-cost hobby of mine over the last few years. I’ve tried and failed and succeeded at making all kinds of strange fermented foods: some that were delicious, some that were not so delicious, and some that were decidedly strange.

After many, many experiments over the last several years, I’ve come to realize that there are really four things that come out on top in terms of things I’d recommend to others. These four items are often being made in our home. They perfectly balance flavorful and useful with being relatively easy to make. (I really enjoy a few other things, but they’re a lot of work – keeping a sourdough starter alive comes to mind here.)

Here are the four fermented food items that I think offer the most “bang for the buck” in terms of making them yourself. They’re easy to make, don’t require much equipment, and use pretty inexpensive ingredients. If you make these even twice, you’ve paid for any equipment compared to buying these foods in the store; if you make them several times, you’re saving a ton of money versus buying them in the store.

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is simply finely chopped fermented cabbage. You simply take a head of cabbage, chop it up into small bits, add some salt to it, mash it around until a lot of the liquid comes out of the cabbage, and then store that juicy salty cabbage in a jar for a few weeks. That’s literally all you do. Sauerkraut is something of a family tradition for me, as my father used to make large batches of it every year in a giant crock in the garage when I was growing up.

My preferred easy way of doing this is to use a large wide-mouth quart Mason jar and put a simple air lock fermentation lid on top. Those are the only two things you need that you might not already have in your kitchen (besides the cabbage and salt). You might also want some glass fermentation weights, but they’re not essential, merely very useful.

The process is about as simple as can be. Go to the store and buy a head of cabbage – weigh it while you’re there and note the weight in pounds. When you get home, take the cabbage head and remove a few of the big outer leaves from the head and set them aside for the moment. Take the rest of the cabbage and chop it up into fine pieces – I usually aim for pieces that are roughly the size of a small matchstick and I discard a small portion of the stem.

To that chopped cabbage, add one tablespoon of salt for every two pounds you weighed in the store. Mix the salt in and let it sit for about 15 minutes, then start squeezing it with your hands or with a blunt instrument. Your goal is to try to get as much water out of the cabbage as you can, and the salt will naturally help with this; you don’t want to discard the liquid, but make a salty “soup” out of the cabbage. Do this for about 10 minutes or so. You’ll be left with a lot of salty liquid and a bunch of squeezed cabbage. Fill a jar about 3/4 full with the wet cabbage, then pour on enough of the liquid so that the cabbage is fully submerged. Take one of the leaves, cut a circle out of it that’s a little wider than the size of the jar, then stuff that cabbage circle down on top, pushing it down below the liquid level. If you have a fermentation weight, put that on top of the cabbage leaf to keep it weighted down so that it’s less likely that the sauerkraut will push up above the liquid level.

Then, pop on the fermenting lid and let it sit for three weeks or so. You might see a bit of white mold on the very surface of it if any of the cabbage is exposed, and that’s okay – you can just toss that part – but if you see any other colors, your liquid wasn’t salty enough.

After three weeks, it’s ready to eat! You can serve it as a condiment or as a side dish with many different meals. You can also experiment with future batches by adding other ingredients to the mix, such as shredded radish, caraway seeds, shredded beets, jalapeño peppers, or minced garlic.

Here’s a great recipe for homemade sauerkraut with more details.

Kombucha

Kombucha is fermented sweet tea. The fermentation process gives the tea a bit of a distinct flavor – it’s still sweet, but it has a hint of pleasant sour to it as well. I personally like to mix it with a small bit of fruit juice.

Again, making kombucha is pretty easy. The only permanent equipment you need is a gallon glass jar, a clean cloth to cover the opening, and a rubber band to secure the cloth in place. If you want to individually bottle it and try to make it fizzy, you’ll need a few resealable bottles – I use these for all kinds of homemade beverages, including kombucha.

You’ll need to buy a bottle of kombucha at the store – this is the “starter” you can use to get your own batch going. I highly recommend the popular GT’s Kombucha brand for this because I’ve personally verified that you can get kombucha started from it. Don’t worry about which flavor to buy.

This part is going to sound crazy, but what you’ll want to do is simply open up the bottle of kombucha, cover the opening with the cloth, use a rubber band to secure it, and just leave it out in the open at room temperature. I’m not kidding in the least. You’ll want to leave it for about a week or two.

What will happen is that a small layer will form at the top of the liquid. It might look more like a small ball, or it might be a layer along the top – both are fine, and the one that forms depends entirely on the type of kombucha you have and the ambient air in your home. That layer or ball is called a scoby, and it’s a key ingredient in making kombucha. This can take a couple of weeks, so don’t sweat it if you don’t see any changes after several days.

Note that, as with any fermentation, if you see anything that looks hairy or black, there’s a problem and you should toss the mixture, but this is a rare occurrence and generally only happens when you’ve messed up a step.

Once that little ball or layer has formed, give it another few days, then you’re ready to make your first batch.

You’ll need 14 cups clean water, 6 bags of black tea, 1 cup of sugar, and your bottle of kombucha. First, simply boil the water in a large pot on the stove. When it reaches a boil, remove it from the heat and put the tea bags in. Let them steep for five minutes or so, then remove the tea bags and let the entire mixture cool to room temperature over a few hours. When it’s at room temperature, add the cup of sugar, stir it thoroughly, then pour it into the clean gallon jar. Then, pour the contents of the kombucha bottle right into the jar, scoby and all. Stir it for a minute or so, then put the cloth over the top of the jar and rubber band it in place.

Let it sit for a couple of weeks. What you’ll notice is that the scoby will grow a lot larger over this time. That’s a good thing.

When you decide it’s time to try it, you’ll want to remove the scoby and two cups of the liquid from the mixture. What you may find is that the scoby separates into multiple pieces or layers; that’s fine. Keep at least one scoby and the liquid. The rest of the remaining liquid is kombucha that’s ready to drink – be aware that it’s not carbonated at all and at room temperature. If you want to carbonate it and add a fruit flavor, add two cups of your preferred fruit juice to the jar, mix it thoroughly, then fill some of the resealable glass bottles mentioned earlier. These will carbonate over the next several days; leave them out on the table and check one of them each morning and evening by simply opening one of the bottles quickly and closing it. When you open one and hear a small popping sound, then carbonation is happening and I would recommend moving them to the fridge and drinking them in the next few days.

The scoby and two cups of liquid that you saved can serve as the starter for your next batch. Just repeat the above process, using your scoby and starter. If the scoby is getting really thick and hard to handle, you can easily divide it into smaller pieces; this allows you to start making multiple batches at once.

Here’s a great kombucha primer from Joy of Cooking.

Fermented Pickled Vegetables

There are a number of ways to “pickle” vegetables. Some of them involve vinegar as a way to introduce acetic acid to encourage the pickling process. Others simply use salt and allow the pickling process to occur naturally. In both cases, you can wind up with a delicious treat.

I personally like many different fermented pickled vegetables. Cucumbers are an obvious choice, but pickled carrots and pickled cauliflower and pickled peppers and pickled radishes are all delicious. I also like mixing vegetables in this process.

My process is simple. I just use a wide-mouth quart jar and a fermenting lid, as described in the earlier section about sauerkraut. I also use a glass fermentation weight or two, as noted earlier. I cut up four cups of vegetables that I want to pickle and put them in the jar – I’ll cut pickles into spears or carrots into smaller long strips or trim down cauliflower florets or cut peppers into strips. If I want to add some spices, I add them now – for example, I like to add peppercorns to many vegetables and dill to pickles. You’ll want to leave at least an inch and a half of space at the top of the jar, if not more. Then, I add three tablespoons of salt to the water and stir it thoroughly, then add that salty water to the vegetables, covering them completely in the salty liquid. I’ll put a fermentation weight or two on top to keep the vegetables down in the brine, then put on the fermentation lid and the ring.

Then, I just let them sit on the countertop or in the cupboard for a few weeks. I usually taste the vegetables at about the two-week mark and then weekly after that until I’m happy with them.

As I noted earlier, this is a delicious way to prepare cucumbers, cauliflower, peppers, carrots, radishes, and beets, among other things. For most of them, you don’t need to add any spices at all, though I like adding peppercorns and dill to pickles at least.

If you’d like to know more about making fermented pickled vegetables, this is a great guide.

Kimchi

Kimchi is a Korean condiment that is made up of a variety of shredded vegetables. I view it as being a “long lost cousin” of sauerkraut, because the two often remind me of each other. Kimchi has a particularly strong flavor, however, and that’s due to some of the more unusual ingredients.

The process for making kimchi is pretty similar to making sauerkraut, actually. You’ll need the things mentioned earlier (wide mouth quart jars, fermentation lids) as well as a blender, as the sauce in kimchi is made up of more than just water and salt. I like to make several jars of this at once, so what follows is a recipe for enough kimchi to fill quite a few jars.

Start with a head of cabbage, three large carrots, and a handful of green onions. Chop the cabbage head until it’s reduced to thin strips, then chop the carrots into long matchsticks. Add half a cup of salt to these vegetables in a big bowl and mix it thoroughly with your hands, then add enough cold water to cover all of the vegetables. Let this sit for an hour or two, then strain off the salty water and save it.

Meanwhile, chop off the green portion of the green onions (and save that green part), then dice them. Put the onions, half a cup of chili powder, 20 garlic cloves, four inches of peeled ginger root, a tablespoon of fish sauce, and four tablespoons of white miso paste in a blender and puree it. It’ll be a very thick paste – add water and re-blend it until it’s like a thin pancake batter or a milkshake.

Take the green parts of the onions, chop them into small pieces, then toss the cabbage-carrot mix, the green onion pieces, and the paste together in a very large bowl. Mix everything as thoroughly as you can; you can/should use your hands, but wear gloves!

Then, just start cramming this stuff into the jars, pressing it down as much as you can. Ideally, some of the thick liquid should move up to the top, covering the vegetables. If this doesn’t quite happen, add just a small bit of the saved salty water until the vegetables are thoroughly covered. I advise you to keep the top of the liquid about an inch and a half from the top of the jar. Put a fermenting lid and a ring on each jar and leave them out at room temperature for three days; they’ll probably start to bubble. When you start to notice bubbling, open each jar and press the vegetables down with a knife, releasing the bubbles. Do it again each day after that. After three days (at least two of which involve noticeable bubbling), put them in the fridge on top of a plate or a pan of some kind, because sometimes this stuff can bubble up and overflow the jar.

This stuff is delicious, but it has a very very distinct flavor that can be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing. I’m in the love-it camp.

Here’s a more detailed version of the above recipe.

Final Thoughts

In all four of these cases, these recipes are far less expensive than buying the equivalent amount of that item in the store, and the homemade version is usually tastier because it’s fresher and you’ve selected the ingredients to match what you like.

However, these food items aren’t for everyone. I encourage you to try these things before making batches of them at home to make sure you’ll even like the end product. I really like all four of these things, but I know that even within my own family, some of these things are… not well liked.

If you find these kinds of foods and procedures interesting, I highly recommend the book The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz as a great reference. There are a number of good books on fermentation out there, but that was the one that really “set the hook” in terms of my own interest and discovery.

Good luck! Now, if I could just figure out how to keep a sourdough starter alive…

Read more by Trent Hamm: 

• 15 Seasoning Mixes and Sauces I Make at Home for Quality and Savings
• Saving Money With Homemade Pizza on a Family Movie Night
• My 10 Favorite Healthy and Inexpensive Foods (and a Recipe for Each One)

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No Emergency Fund? Start With Your Tax Refund

Life is full of surprises — some good and some bad. Most of us just try to ride the wave the best we can, making the most of what we have.

When it comes to our financial lives though, there are steps we can take to ensure life’s “surprises” don’t throw our lives into a tailspin. You can’t predict when your car will break down or you’ll face a medical emergency, but you can plan for those “what ifs” in a financial sense.

Unfortunately, not everyone who needs emergency savings has enough — or any at all. A recent survey from Bankrate revealed that only 40% of respondents could cover a $1,000+ emergency expense with savings. Everyone else would have to charge their emergency bills to a credit card, take out a personal loan, or find some other way to pay.

Four Reasons to Save Your Tax Refund This Year

With tax season wrapping up, you may want to consider throwing your refund into your emergency savings — then leaving it alone. The average federal tax refund in 2018 worked out to $2,899, while the average 2019 refund (for last year’s tax season) is still $1,949 so far this year.

That may not be enough to solve all your financial problems, but it’s a good start. Here are some of the ways saving your refund could leave you better off in 2019 and beyond.

You Can Reduce Money Stress

One of the worst consequences of not having any emergency savings is the money stress it adds to our lives. When you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck, even a minor hiccup like needing new tires or an emergency room co-pay can throw you off track. Then you’re left scrambling to figure out how to cover those surprise expenses while also keeping the lights on and food on the table.

Financial coach Anthony Kirlew of Fiscally Sound says that’s why he suggests his clients build up emergency savings in addition to paying down high-interest debt.

“It takes discipline to save money that you were not expecting to receive, but in the long run, saving your tax refund reduces your stress because it will help ensure that you have a financial cushion to cover an emergency without hurting your budget or racking up credit card debt,” he said.

Even if your tax refund is only $1,000, having that money set aside could help you sleep easier. And when the next random expense comes along, you won’t have to panic.

Make a Big Impact All at Once

Financial planner R.J. Weiss says one major concept in behavior science is the concept of willpower depletion — the idea that we have a limited amount of self-control which gets used the more decisions we make. In other words, making one good decision is easier than making multiple small decisions, he says.

Your tax refund is one of the few chances throughout the year where you can make one good decision with a sizeable initial impact. “Instead of saving, say, $200 a month for 12 months to build an emergency fund, which may require dozens of small decisions a month, you can simply save it all in one big chunk,” he says.

For someone who has struggled to build up emergency savings in the past, saving a tax refund in a separate savings account is a smart way to jumpstart a financial turnaround.

Improve Your Life in the Long-Term

CPA Logan Allec of Money Done Right says he has seen people make some big mistakes with their tax refunds during his career, from splurges on gadgets his clients don’t need to gambling it all away in Vegas!

For example, several years ago one of his clients used his refund to purchase a new PlayStation 4 and almost a dozen games. A few months later, the same client’s car broke down and he didn’t have an adequate emergency fund to cover the repair. Not surprisingly, he wound up charging the cost on his credit card.

“This sent him down a financial hole that took him years to recover from — and this recovery involved selling his beloved PlayStation 4 on Craigslist,” said Allec.

This just goes to show the importance of an emergency fund, and how wasting your tax refund could harm you in the short-term.

“Yes, you may have a lot of fun going on a shopping spree with your tax refund,” said Allec. “But sooner or later, some unforeseen expense is going to come up, and I guarantee that you will be kicking yourself for not having used that refund money to build your emergency fund.”

The bottom line: Save your tax refund in a high-yield savings account, and your future self will thank you.

Save Money Over the Long-Term

While you may not earn a ton of money in interest by stashing your tax refund in emergency savings, having the money to cover a pricey home repair or surprise medical bill could easily save you hundreds — or even thousands — of dollars over the long-term. When you cover emergency expenses with savings instead of a credit card, you’re saving big money by avoiding high-interest debt.

Currently, the average credit card APR is well over 17%, making credit cards one of the most expensive borrowing options available. Emergency savings can help you avoid this type of debt and all the interest payments that come with it.

The Bottom Line

Life is stressful enough without having some emergency savings set aside. You work hard all year long and you do the best you can, so you shouldn’t have to have your life turned upside down when an unanticipated bill is thrown your way.

Why is using your tax refund the perfect way to jumpstart your emergency savings? As financial coach Todd Tresidder of Financial Mentor so wisely puts it, “you don’t miss what you never had.”

Windfalls like a tax refund can easily be saved without any sense of deprivation. The money hasn’t been yours all along, so you may not even miss it.

Open a high-yield savings account or add your tax refund to the e-fund you already have. Then, no matter what you do, don’t look back.

You’ll never regret saving for life’s surprises, but you could very well regret it if you don’t.

Holly Johnson is an award-winning personal finance writer and the author of Zero Down Your Debt. Johnson shares her obsession with frugality, budgeting, and travel at ClubThrifty.com.

Related:

• Best Savings Account for 2019
• Saving for Tomorrow vs. Living for Today
• Beam Review: Can You Really Earn Up to 4% With This Savings Account?

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