This Man Told Us How He Turned Christmas Lights Into a Lucrative Business

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2018 and has been updated for the 2019 holiday season.

When you have a name like Josh Trees and you run a Christmas light installation business, you have to be prepared for the inevitable question: Is that actually your name?

Trees — yes, that’s his real name — started his business, We Hang Christmas Lights, in 1997, decorating homes, businesses and assorted branched greenery in Temecula, California. 

But Trees definitely gets the last (jolly) laugh.

“When we first started doing this, people were like, ‘Oh, that’s a cute little business,’” Trees says. “We were like, ‘Yeah, cute,’ —  you don’t realize people are paying us $3,500 to put lights up on their houses. 

“By my third year, I was hitting a net profit of right around $138,000.” 

Now Trees crisscrosses the country with strands of lights and a tiny house to teach others how they can build their own businesses hanging twinkling bulbs.

On the First Day of Christmas Lighting

Ah, the fond memories of hauling out last year’s box of lights to add some holiday cheer to the humble abode. Haphazardly arrange the lights around the front stoop, throw a wreath on the door and voilá! 

But if you’re starting a business hanging lights, that simplified recollection can lead to costly errors, according to Trees. And he should know, because he had the same idea.

“We were making mistakes on everything — we were just a bunch of guys thinking, ‘Hey, this is going to be easy,’” Trees says. “We were hanging other people’s lights — that’s a huge no-no.… The second stage was hanging the crummy lights from retailers.

“I’m surprised I made it through the first couple years.”

By the third year, Trees had moved onto purchasing lights from wholesale vendors, which offered discounts for bulk purchases. He was also buying commercial-grade strands so that when one bulb went out, they didn’t all go out.

But Trees says his biggest mistake had nothing to do with lights — it was underbidding jobs.

“I got into it in the first year…  and I didn’t make any money — probably lost money,” Trees says. “I was charging $150 for jobs that should have been $850.

“I bid a job for $3,500 that should have literally been $35,000. It was horrible.” 

Enlightening Business Strategies

Trees’ students echo his refrain, noting that learning from other professionals early on can help transform a business idea into a profitable enterprise — and with a lot fewer mistakes along the way.

One of Trees’ early students was Jeff Krall, owner of American Holiday Lights in Illinois. In 2008, Krall attended an individual training session, which Trees conducted before he started traveling the country to teach classes.

“Josh helped me get it started,” says Krall. “Everything from how to hang the lights on the rooflines… making our own extension cords, how to wrap the trees.

“It would take someone… two or three years to learn how to do it correctly, whereas Josh, in two or three days, he tells them how to do everything.”

In his first season of business, Krall estimates he had 30 clients. Now he manages 25 to 35 employees who light 35 to 40 houses a day during the season, at an average price of $1,400 to $1,500 per house.

However, those visions of sugarplums and dollar signs dancing in your head might not be in your immediate future — or at least not the first season.

In 2017, Lucas Pulvermacher decided to add a light-hanging business to his busy lawn care enterprise near Oshkosh, Wisconsin. 

“My first year was tricky because I had to have an inventory of the lights. That’s a fairly large cost — and also the ladder, equipment, safety stuff like that,” says Pulvermacher. “I’d say we came out about even.”

Pulvermacher says his Lucas Lights lit three houses and two businesses after launching in mid-November last year — “It was hard because we started so late.” 

After taking Trees’ class to learn marketing and sales strategies, Pulvermacher invested in professionally designed materials, including a logo.

Beyond Christmas Lights

One of the cool things about those twinkling lights is that they still work after Jan. 1. That means there’s more business after the wintry holiday season.

“A lot of the guys we work with, they do wedding lights, event lights, party lights and backyard lighting, that sort of thing, and a lot also do landscape lighting,” says Trees, who estimates that light installations for weddings bring in $1,800 on average but can go as high as $7,000.

Krall, who also owns a roofing business, hangs lights all year round for backyard weddings, Diwali festival of lights celebrations and Halloween parties — “but the majority of what we do is Christmas,” he notes.

Holiday Gigs

So let’s say you’re not ready to start your own business but being outside hanging lights sounds like a better gig than working a seasonal retail job. 

You might be in luck.

Krall notes that the toughest part of his business is finding good, reliable help.

“We got creative this year, so we align ourselves with other companies out there that are seasonal, like landscapers or pool companies,” Krall says. “When they’re laying off, we’re actively developing relationships.”

Trees recommends that installers offer tiered bonus pay, adding an extra $1 per hour each week to incentivize continued attendance as the season winds down — particularly in January when companies have to take down the lights.

“Helpers can typically make anywhere from between… $13 at the low end to about $20 at the high end — and that’s before bonuses,” Trees says. “When you find somebody that’s good, it’s key that you keep those people, because it’s temporary, and they know it’s temporary.”

For people interested in finding holiday lighting jobs in their area, Trees suggests checking places like Craigslist, Indeed and the We Hang Christmas Lights site, which includes a directory of light installers that’s searchable by zip code — just mention your interest in a job when you fill out the online form. 

Trees has found that these holiday gigs are best suited for people who work warm-weather jobs in roofing, tree trimming and window washing. All of which have at least one trait in common — no fear of heights. 

And yes, the money is nice, but Krall and Pulvermacher agree that the best part of hanging bulbs is the way their customers’ faces light up when they see the finished product.

“Everybody’s in a really good mood around Christmas time,” says Krall. 

Pulvermacher adds: “It’s just kind of a cozy feeling when you see a house all lit up.”

Tiffany Wendeln Connors is a writer/editor at The Penny Hoarder. 

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

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Mailbag: Questions About Mass Layoffs, Financial Autopilot, Cast Iron and More

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Authorized signer on checking account
2. Mass layoffs at work
3. Financial autopilot is very boring
4. Cast iron is gross!
5. Stock market not realistic
6. Free tools for podcasting
7. “Stolen” reusable containers
8. Inexpensive family games for holidays
9. Different credit scores?
10. Cheap but durable backpack
11. Tips for razor blade life
12. 2020 reading list

Something I like to do each December is make a batch of homemade egg nog. I use this basic recipe from Serious Eats, mixing it together in a cocktail mixer, and I keep it in the fridge in a container.

My belief in the past had been that you should drink it fairly quickly after making it, but a friend of mine has persuaded me to let it age for a couple of weeks in the fridge, so I have some egg nog in the fridge in a few jars aging for a couple of weeks.

I’m sure many of you will want to know the cost calculations on this. It’s definitely cheaper to make it yourself unless you’re buying organic dairy products from a local farm versus buying the dirt cheap eggnog at the store (and even then, it’s fairly close). It’s pretty easy to do — you just put the ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake it for a while, then strain it so that any thicker parts of the eggs are strained out. I think it’s pretty tasty, too.

(Just make sure the eggs you’re using are pasteurized.)

On with the questions!

Q1: Authorized signer on checking account

I recently found out I’m an authorized user on my dad’s checking account, leftover from long ago. I called the credit union and they said we both have to come to their office in person (which isn’t easy for my elderly father) and he would need to close the entire checking account and open a new one just to have me removed as an authorized user. I’ve explained the situation and complained plenty. I don’t buy what they’re saying one bit as I bank almost exclusively online, but they’re not budging. My question is are there any negative implications to just staying as an authorized user on his account? I know it doesn’t affect my credit report. But could it have a negative impact on my ChexSystems report if, let’s say, he overdrafts? And should he pass away with debt or other financial issues, would I have any obligation to pay that if our names are connected on his checking account? I’m trying to gauge if I should put the effort to fight this or just let it go.
– Bianca

I did some research into this, including contacting a local bank and having a long conversation with the manager. In most situations, an authorized signer is not liable for anything regarding the account — that’s standard policy for banks today. However, banking practices haven’t always been as standardized as they are today, so the bank manager strongly encouraged me to tell you to check with the bank in question and ask them directly. Just simply state that you are an authorized signer on an account and what your concerns are.

Again, in normal banking practices, if you are an authorized signer and he passes away, your ability to sign related to that account also ends immediately. It is he who is authorizing you, and that authorization terminates at his death. This makes sense, as the account is now part of his estate.

Here’s another way to think of it: all of the risk is with him because he’s the account owner. You are not an owner, merely someone he gave permission to sign documents related to the account. It’s not your actual responsibility.

My recommendation would be to call the bank and ask these questions very specifically. You’ll likely be handed off to a branch manager who can answer those questions. Unless their policies are outside of what I understand to be the norm, you will be fine remaining an authorized signer on the account.

Q2: Mass layoffs at work

This morning a third of my department was let go. They were given two weeks severance, walked one by one to their desks to clear them out, and escorted out the door. I’m scared and everyone’s scared. I have spent today trying to figure out what I should be doing right now. I have $65K in student loan debt and $11K in credit card debt and no money in the bank other than some in my 401(k). My wife works but makes maybe half of what I do. Please help with specific advice on what to do.
– Jim

Obviously, you shouldn’t bet on your employer employing you for a lot longer. It’s very likely you’re going to be hit with a flood of work as you take up the slack from the terminated people, plus they’ve shown you how expendable you actually are. If I were you, I’d be looking elsewhere for work as soon as possible.

First, you have to cut back on your spending immediately. A lot of the more frivolous things you spend money on have to go for a while. Buy everything store brand. Eat most of your meals at home. Don’t go out nearly as much and have a lot of “date nights” at home. Enjoy hobby stuff you already have instead of buying new stuff. You need to channel that saved money into a savings account and build yourself a nice emergency fund so that you can survive for a few months without work. I strongly recommend setting up an automatic transfer from your checking to your savings account each week for a healthy amount — $50, perhaps — and never turning it off. In the short term, supplement it with even more so you can build it up quickly. That way, if you need to use it in the future, there’s always cash in there for emergencies like a sudden job loss.

Also, polish up that resume and start talking quietly to anyone you know in the field outside of your employer. Ask them if there are any openings at their organization that you might be right for. Beyond that, start getting involved in any local groups that are related to your field (if you’re not already) and stay involved, because it’s situations like this where the relationships you have with people in those groups can really prove useful. Look online and offline for these groups.

Those are the two most important things for you to do right now. You’ve got to get your finances in better shape while looking for a new job. Some of these changes — like a better grip on your spending and more involvement in your local professional community — should be permanent ones, lasting after you find a new job.

Q3: Financial autopilot is very boring

I think I’m where you’re at with having all of your finances on autopilot and it’s really boring. I have some money in my checking account that I can spend on whatever I want and everything else is automatically paid. I have every single one of my bills on auto-pay. I automatically put money into an emergency fund and a bunch into retirement all automatically. I just buy food and household supplies and fun things out of checking and I just wait. If I lose my job or something, I’d just go in and turn off a bunch of automatic transfers and move some money over from my emergency fund for a while. I used to stress so much about finances and now I don’t even think about it for weeks at a time. It’s actually pretty boring because there’s nothing really to think about, so I have time to think about other things in life and that’s actually kind of the problem because thinking about other things sometimes tempts me to spend that money and change things. It’s like putting together a LEGO kit — fun when you are building it but boring when it’s done.
– Ambrose

I’m very much in that same boat. Almost everything in our financial life is on autopilot. The only issue that ever comes up is when something automatic breaks. We have a healthy enough emergency fund that unexpected events don’t really derail anything.

It becomes a waiting game at that point and it’s easy to focus on other things. I’ve been trying to stretch the self-improvement principles I learned from all of this into other areas of my life, reading a lot of philosophy, delving into hobbies and trying frugal projects because it’s enjoyable for me to figure out optimal ways of doing things (in terms of both time and money).

I think the important thing is to find things to focus on that aren’t going to damage the financial system you have in place while also making you feel fulfilled. I have a number of things in my life that do this for me. I think it’s also helpful to really focus on gratitude and be grateful for having that kind of financial stability and the peace and lack of stress it brings because it’s fairly rare today.

Q4: Cast iron is gross!

So you’re telling me the shiny nonstick layer in a cast-iron skillet is just cooked-in oil and food bits and stuff? That is seriously gross!
– Amy

It’s not what you would think of as food, really. The shiny nonstick layer on a cast iron skillet is called the patina, and it’s basically fats and oils that have been heated above their melting and boiling points and cooled down many times. In that process, they undergo a number of chemical transformations that, in the end, cause them to oxidize and form tight bonds with the other fat molecules on there.

A good mental model is to think about what happens to wood when you burn it. It doesn’t stay wood — it turns to ash. Ash has very different properties and very different uses than wood — for one, you can actually use hardwood ash to make soap. It’s undergone significant physical and chemical changes — it’s not the same thing anymore.

The same exact thing is true with the patina on your skillet. It was originally fats and oils, but it’s been heated and cooled so many times that it’s not the same thing anymore. Like how wood transforms into ash, fats and oils transform into a hard, dry, shiny, nonstick layer that protects the pan from rusting.

Q5: Stock market not realistic

I would like to see an article explaining how believing that you’ll get 20%+ returns a year in the stock market forever isn’t realistic. The stock market has grown really nicely for a decade now but it’s cyclical and there will eventually be a downturn.
– Derek

I completely agree. The only problem is that no one knows when the downturn will hit. Will it be in a year? Five years? Ten? No one knows for sure.

I do know this: I stick to my long term stock market return prediction as being around 7% a year on average. The last decade has beaten that significantly, but long-term history has not. However, the last decade started at a very low point historically — 2009 was clearly a bottoming out of the stock market.

I strongly encourage readers to not believe that the stock market will return more than about 7% to 8% a year over the very long term. Individual years — or even runs of years — will beat that significantly, but then there will also be years like 2008 where the bottom falls out.

Q6: Free tools for podcasting

Want to start a podcast with a friend but all of the intro guides seem to list hundreds of dollars worth of stuff and services. I need free tools to get started and then upgrade from there as needed.
– Max

The first thing you’ll need is a host. For free, I’d suggest Podbean, which has a free tier that will be perfect for your first few episodes so you can see if this is something you want to stick with. You can record episodes for free right within the Podbean app on your phone if you wish, though the sound will be of the same level of quality that a smartphone mic picks up.

If you want to record on a computer, you will need an inexpensive mic of some kind. I’d probably get a very low-end Logitech USB headphone-mic combo. It won’t sound amazing, but it’ll be certainly good enough to get started and should cost you under $20. You can use the built-in mic in a computer if you really want, but it’ll sound extremely echo-y at best and there’s no software in the world that can fix it.

For a really good free basic sound editor on a computer, get Audacity. It’ll do a great job for you. If you want to talk to guests remotely, use Skype and have them record their audio using Audacity and then send you their file so you can sync them up.

That’s enough to get you started for free. As you do it and learn, you can decide for yourself what things you want to add to it.

Q7: “Stolen” reusable containers

After our big Thanksgiving family dinner I packed up leftovers in really nice Rubbermaid containers for some guests and they took them home. I assumed the containers would be returned but no one returned them and I’m out several containers. Sad that family members and friends would steal. How should I ask for them to be returned?
– Andie

I think it’s a giant stretch to think of these containers as “stolen.” Likely, they took them home, used them, ran them through the dishwasher, and stuck it somewhere, figuring they could just give it back to you the next time they saw you.

If you want it back urgently, give them a call. A much nicer approach would be to just ask them to bring it the next time you get together with them normally.

An aside: if it’s a really nice Rubbermaid container (some of them are pretty nice, especially when new), I understand wanting them returned, but if it’s an older container or a cheap one, like Gladware, it’s really not even worth mentioning.

Q8: Inexpensive family games for holidays

Do you have any suggestions for inexpensive ($20 or less) games that would be fun for a large family group? Want something to take to the holidays. A cousin brought Codenames for Thanksgiving and I want to “pay it forward” and add to the fun because everyone liked that. Looked at Target and there were infinite options.
– Viola

I’ll name a few good low-cost games that might click well with a large mixed family.

Monikers is a word game in which two teams of people take turns going through a small deck of cards several times. The cards each depict some noun on it — usually a person or a place — and a point value. Each person gets a minute to try to get their teammates to name what’s on the card without saying that exact word. Your team keeps the ones they get right. Ones you get wrong or pass on get shuffled back into the deck, then the other team gets a shot, and teams go back and forth until the deck is empty (with clue-givers rotating around). When the deck is empty, teams count up scores, then they play again with the same exact deck, except that now you can only use one single word as a clue. Once that’s done and you score again, you play through it a third time, using only gestures. It works because everyone’s already seen all the cards multiple times. It’s a great game, comes with a lot of cards for replayability, and costs around $20. Note that if you’re playing with kids, you may want to filter out a few cards, so go through the cards first.

Dixit is a game with big, beautifully drawn art cards. Each player has a hand of cards and one person is a clue-giver each round. The clue-giver chooses one of the cards in their hand and gives a clue about it — not too specific and not too vague. All of the other players give a card to the clue giver that best matches the clue, then the clue giver turns over all the cards and all of the other players guess which one was the clue giver’s card. If some — not all, but just some — of the players picked the right card, the clue giver gets 3 points and all correct guessers get a point; otherwise, the clue giver gets a -2 point penalty. Also, anyone who wasn’t the clue giver but had someone else guess their card gets a point. You play until someone hits 30, but it’s mostly hilarious to see the clues people come up with and to appreciate the art.

Skull is a simple game that takes the bluffing of poker and distills it down to the very basics. You have a stack of four beautiful cardboard tiles, identical on one side and on the other side, one has a skull and the other three have roses. At the start of a round, everyone puts a tile of their choice face down in front of them, then players go around the table either adding a tile to their stack or starting a bid. You start a bit by saying a number, then other players can overbid you until everyone passes. You resolve a bid by flipping over that many tiles, starting with your own, then flipping over those of other players from the top of their stacks. If you see only roses, you get a point, and the game is won by the first player to two points. If you hit a skull, you lose one of your four tiles at random, and you’re out of the game when you have no tiles. It’s a very simple and beautiful bluffing game.

Hopefully one of those three will match what your extended family might like! I personally vouch for all three of these being quite fun in a mixed group with people of all ages.

Q9: Different credit scores?

I saw part of a news report last night discussing how credit bureaus are now using a number of different credit scores for people. It was confusing because I missed the last half of the story. Do you know what they’re talking about?
– Jeremy

Sure do. The credit bureaus, which are the companies that collect your credit information and share it with other businesses so they can decide whether to lend money or extend credit to you, don’t actually maintain one single credit score for you. They actually maintain a bunch of different ones. Here’s why.

There are different kinds of requests that a business can make from a credit bureau when they want to know about you. They can get a copy of your credit report, or they can just get a credit score — a number that kind of summarizes your report. Up until fairly recently, there was one score that everyone used — the FICO score. That’s what most people think of when they think of “credit score.”

However, some businesses wanted a different score that was calculated a bit different. They might want a score that grades you with a much higher focus on not having defaulted on loans and a much lower emphasis on being 30 days late. Another business might want a score that really emphasizes timely payment, and another business might want a score that emphasizes the length of credit history. It depends on the business and what they care most about when lending to customers.

To facilitate that, the credit bureaus have gradually rolled out more credit scores for various purposes, emphasizing different things. You might have a really good credit score by one of those formulas, an OK one by another formula and a bad one by yet another.

So what can you do about this? Rather than worrying about a credit score at all, worry about what makes up a good credit score and get those things in good shape. Don’t be late on your bills. Always make your minimum payments. Avoid defaulting on any loans. Don’t max out your credit cards. Keep a long credit history by at least keeping your oldest credit card around, even if you don’t use it. If you do those things, you’ll have a pretty good score with any formula, at least with regards to the things you can control.

Q10: Cheap but durable backpack

I need a cheap but durable backpack. I just moved about a mile from a subway stop and I’m going to try using just subway and buses in 2020 and selling my car if it works out. I pulled out my old college backpack but the thing is falling apart and I can’t believe it didn’t rip out my last semester. Don’t need anything amazing, just something cheap and durable to carry a laptop and a book and some snacks and headphones.
– Barry

The first thing I’d do if I were you is check some secondhand shops in the area. Don’t just hit Goodwill or Salvation Army, but also check out some consignment shops and pawn shops. You might also want to check out any buy/sell/trade community Facebook groups and throw out a request. If you can get a $70 backpack for $20 with only a bit of use (most of the time, used backpacks for sale are ones people used a dozen times and stopped using for whatever reason, usually unrelated to the bag), that’s a good deal.

Honestly, in terms of a cheap new backpack, I’d get this Amazon Basics one for $29.99. I got a good look at one of these recently and I was amazed at the quality for $30. It’s not as good as my own, but it’s a lot less expensive and most of the quality. It had good, roomy pockets and the seams looked pretty well stitched for the price.

The Jansport Big Student backpack is pretty good, too. It’s a bit more expensive than the Amazon Basics one, but it’s roomier. You can often find this bag or a similar one at department stores like Target and Walmart, particularly during back to school periods. For example, the Trans By JanSport 17″ SuperMax at Target is very similar and is available at a number of Targets near me, if you want to go look at one. It’s usually the best backpack they sell for the price, in my opinion. I had a similar one when I was younger.

Those are all options that will get you a pretty sturdy and roomy backpack for under $40. Good luck with your 2020 resolution!

Q11: Tips for razor blade life

Here are some tips for keeping shaving cheap if you want to stick with a cartridge razor. First, clean it and keep it dry after every shave. Run water between the blades and get all the hair and any soap out then make sure it’s well dried with a towel after flicking water out of it several times. You can dip the head in alcohol too if you don’t think it’s dry. Run it backwards every two or three shaves on something like a pair of jeans, opposite of the direction it would cut, as that cheaply hones the blades and extends their life. I do these things and shave every day and sometimes twice a day with Harry’s and a single cartridge will last a month or so. Used to leave the razor in the shower and never rub it on anything and it would be dangerous within a week. Huge money saver.
– Tom

Great tips, Tom. In my experience, you can hone the blades a bit by just running them backwards on your forearm. I do it after each shower.

I usually shave in the shower like you seem to. I grab the razor out of the closet and take it in the shower with me. I shave using shower soap. Then when I’m done with it, I rinse it thoroughly in the shower water and set it up next to the soap. When the shower’s done, I dry off, then grab the razor, flick it dry a few times, and rub it on the towel. Then I run it backwards on my arm a time or two and stick it in the closet. I used to do it on my jeans after getting dressed, but I’d forget to do it half the time and it’s way quicker and gets similar results to just do it on my forearm.

I get similar results to you — a cartridge can last 30 or so shaves if I do this diligently. It’s the routine I’ve fallen into after a bunch of trial and error.

Q12: 2020 reading list

I hope to see an update soon to your reading lists and reading goals!
– Sandra

Sure!

As I’ve mentioned before, my theme in 2020 is “black belt,” and while that obviously relates to my goal of achieving a black belt in taekwondo by the end of the year, it has a deeper meaning, too. It means that I want to “lean in” to some things in my life and approach them with systematic care and deliberate practice.

One big thing is that I want to spend more time doing focused reading of books, not just blowing through them for fun and rushing to the next one, but really extracting meaning and lasting value from them. I’m trying to build a daily system around this … a topic I’m going to address in a later post, probably this week or next.

Anyway, the point is that I’m intentionally digging into some material in 2020 that I consider challenging, not in the sense that it’s hard to read (though that might be true), but that it challenges ideas I’ve held and makes me think about new ones. I plan to try to develop a daily routine of reading for an hour or two in a very deliberate way so that I’m really absorbing the ideas and thinking about them, which probably means slower reading than I’ve done before.

I can name four that are definitely on my reading list at the start of the year: Aristotle’s Way by Edith Hall, Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han (recommended by a reader), and The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew Crawford (a reread).

Most of the books I pick to read come from a long list of books that I want to read. When I have maybe two or three left on my bedside table, I’ll go through that long list, pick one or two that seem interesting, and request them from the library. Sometimes, there’s a brief waiting list for the book and at other times the book has to be requested. That list is very long and full of books I tossed on there on a whim and most are likely never going to be read. I will sometimes just purge everything after roughly one hundred on the list, because I never make it down that far when looking for the next book I want to read.

Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

The post Mailbag: Questions About Mass Layoffs, Financial Autopilot, Cast Iron and More appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Considering a Joint Bank Account? Read This Before You Open One

Forget making it Facebook official. Opening a joint bank account is the true way to show you’re committed.

OK, so not really. But for many married couples, long-term domestic partners, families and even roommates, joint bank accounts make budgeting and sharing bills easier to manage.

What Is a Joint Bank Account?

A joint bank account is much like any other bank account you open with your bank or credit union. You can use it to save money and earn interest, write checks and swipe a debit card to make payments, and even set it up for direct deposit and automatic bill pay.

So what’s different? You aren’t the only account holder. Joint bank accounts let multiple people (typically two, though some banks allow up to four) act as account holders. That means they have equal rights to deposit — and withdraw — funds and will be held just as responsible as you for overdraft fees.

Why a Joint Bank Account Might Be Right for You

The main reason people open a joint bank account is because they are married or domestic partners with shared expenses and shared savings goals. Sharing a bank account might make you a little more disciplined with your own spending and can help you form a team mentality toward saving for specific goals.

But romantic partners aren’t the only ones who open joint bank accounts. Sometimes parents will add children, like college students or young teens just learning the ropes of money management, to their accounts. Those with aging parents might be added to their parents’ accounts to make it easier to take care of medical expenses or trips to the grocery. If you trust your roommates enough to open an account just for rent and utilities contributions, it’s an easy way to take care of shared household expenses.

A huge pro of joint bank accounts is the financial power of combined money. Often, certain accounts will pay higher interest rates when you have more money in them. Reaching that total is easier with more than one contributor.

Potential Pitfalls of Joint Bank Accounts

Bankers beware: Joint bank accounts have a lot of downsides, so be sure you trust your co-account owner on a personal level and a financial level before opening.

For starters, if a relationship or friendship ends poorly, the other co-account owner can drain the account before you are able to freeze the funds (or withdraw them yourself). If your relationship is on rocky ground, a joint bank account is not a good idea.

Some partners who do not see eye to eye on spending and saving should consider separate accounts to avoid fighting.

Pro Tip

Instead of combining all your savings into one account, create an account for monthly contributions toward shared bills and keep the rest of your finances separate.

Another major con of joint bank accounts is what can happen if your co-account owner mismanages the funds. They may be solely responsible for the act of overspending, but the bank will hold both of you responsible for the resulting overdraft fees — and you’ll also be out all that spent money.

Joint bank accounts can also have a negative effect on your credit score. If the other account holder has bad credit, you will likely experience a drop in your own score.

Further, any funds in a joint bank account count toward both of your assets. That means, if one of the account holders files for bankruptcy, the money in the joint bank account is fair game for their creditors, even if you actually contributed most of that money. 

Just as frustrating, shared funds with your child in college could count against them in terms of financial aid while an account held jointly with someone on Medicaid could disqualify them from receiving benefits.

Finally, joint bank accounts can get messy when one of the owners passes away. Because of “right of survivorship,” all that money goes to the other co-owner, even if you had intended for some of it to be distributed to other family, friends or organizations via your will. 

And even if your intention is to pass on the money to the co-owner after death, the co-owner will still potentially have to deal with inheritance taxes, depending on the amount in the bank account.

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How to Open a Joint Bank Account

If a joint bank account makes sense for you and your partner, parent, child or roommate, apply online or visit a branch of your chosen bank in person to open the account. The process is typically easy. Just be sure to bring:

• Proof of identity, like your driver’s license or passport
• Proof of address, like a utility bill
• Your initial deposit (this can also be electronically procured from an existing account at another institution, if necessary)

You will need to fill out an application, and voila! You now co-own a joint bank account. You should receive a debit card, a checkbook and information regarding how the account works.

But before signing on the dotted line, ask a few important questions:

• What happens if the relationship with the co-account holder ends? How do you freeze funds?
• Can one person take out all the funds at once? Is it possible to limit withdrawals unless both/all parties are present?
• Who is responsible for paying overdraft fees?

Considering an online bank for your new joint bank account? Check out our favorite online savings and online checking accounts for 2019.

Timothy Moore leads a team of editors and graphic designers at a market research company as his full-time gig. As a freelance writer, he writes about personal finance, careers, education, pet care, travel and the automotive industry. His work has been featured on Debt.com, The Ladders, Glassdoor and The News Wheel.

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

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New peer-to-peer lending rules come into force - new investor deposits curtailed

New peer-to-peer lending rules come into force - new investor deposits curtailed

New and inexperienced investors will have the amount they can deposit in peer-to-peer platforms capped at 10% unless they take financial advice first 

Stephen Little Mon, 12/09/2019 - 11:14

Image

New investors will not be able to place more than 10% of their assets in peer-to-peer (P2P) investments unless they have received financial advice, under new rules from the City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), that come into force today.

This is to ensure that investors have clear, accurate information about what they are investing in and so that they do not over-expose themselves to risk.

The changes mean P2P platforms will have to provide extra information, helping investors to make better-informed decisions.

Platforms are also required to assess investors’ knowledge and experience of P2P investments.

The regulator is also introducing new advertising rules, requiring providers to clearly spell out the potential risks involved.

Rhydian Lewis, chief executive of P2P lender RateSetter, says the new regulations are a “watershed moment” for the industry.

He says: “For first-time P2P investors, 10% is a sensible place to start and once you are experienced you can invest more. 

"This is exactly what we have seen over the last ten years, with people dipping their toe in and then growing as they see the value. The limit will become a target, encouraging every investor to think about diversifying some of their money into P2P.

“Stronger regulation with harmonised standards means that people can invest in P2P with greater confidence than ever."

However, other large P2P platforms, such as Landbay, have announced their exit from the retail investor market altogether. 

What is P2P lending?

P2P platforms bring borrowers in need of loans together with investors who want to earn more than in savings accounts at banks.

By using a P2P platform as the middleman, you can lend money to individuals or businesses. As banks are being cut out of the deal, P2P is good for borrowers and lenders. However, not without extra added risks. 

The person borrowing money gets a lower interest rate than they would from a traditional lender and the person lending the money is offered a higher interest rate than they would receive from a traditional savings account.

Some of the best-known P2P platforms include Funding Circle, LendingCrowd, Lending Works, RateSetter and Zopa.

You can expect to get returns of between 3% and 7% a year, depending on which account you choose.

Is P2P lending safe?

This year has seen the high-profile collapse of P2P lenders FundingSecure and Lendy, raising questions about the safety of P2P lenders.

While P2P offers savers the potential for better returns, you must remember that the risks are higher. It is not the same as putting your money in a bank and is more like investing.

It is also important to note that P2P platforms are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which protects your money up to £85,000.

This means that if the P2P platform goes bust you will not get your money back.

There is also the chance that some companies or individuals you have lent your money to decide to default.

Some companies do have measures in place to protect you regarding this. Zopa splits your investment into small chunks across multiple loans to help spread the risk, while Ratesetter has a provision fund, so even if the borrower defaults you get paid.

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How to Convince Someone to Hire You Without Experience

Finding a job when you have no experience can be a challenging mission, to say the least. After all, how are you supposed to compete with people who have been working in the industry for years? But the truth is, experience is only one aspect of what employers are looking for in a recruit, and […]

The post How to Convince Someone to Hire You Without Experience appeared first on The Work at Home Woman | Legit Work From Home Jobs.

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Put Yourself in the Driver’s Seat: 4 Tips to Limit Debt When Buying a Car

Ready for a new (or new-ish) set of wheels?

Before you set foot in a dealership or start picking out the trim, you should prepare your bank account for a hit — the average price for a mid-size car was $27,968 in October 2019, according to Kelley Blue Book. 

For people who don’t have an extra $30,000 lying around, that means taking on auto loan debt — and plenty of us do. Outstanding debt balances on auto loans rose $18 billion in the third quarter of 2019, ballooning to $1.3 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. For comparison, credit card debt rose $13 billion in the same period to $880 billion. 

But just because you need a vehicle doesn’t mean you have to dig a huge financial hole you’ll spend years climbing out of. We’re here with strategies to help you get behind the wheel with the least amount of debt.

4 Ways to Limit Auto Loan Debt

Ready to hit the open road? Before you rev your car-shopping engines, put your finances in park and check out these four ways to avoid taking on any more auto loan debt than necessary. (And in return, I promise to stop with the car puns.)

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1. Set a Budget

Here’s the thing about budgeting for a car: You’re not just budgeting for a car (or at least you shouldn’t be).

You’re also paying for the tax and title, the gas, the oil changes, the insurance and the inevitable nail-in-a-tire-costs-me-how-much moment.

So before you let a dealership lure you in with the promise of a low monthly payment (while glossing over the fact that it’s for a seven-year loan), do your homework. 

Set a budget that you can comfortably live with each month for the car payment plus the regular maintenance — the average maintenance and repair costs for a small sedan are 8.53 cents per mile, according to AAA — and other expenses associated with owning a vehicle.

Better yet, before you start figuring out how big of a loan you’ll need, consider ways you can save money to buy a car. A bigger down payment — or, gasp, paying for that ride in cash — means you’ll fork over less of your hard-earned money for interest on the loan.

2. Know Your Credit Score

Before you drive, you should know where you stand. 

Knowing your credit score can help you figure out how much a car loan will cost since. Your credit score is calculated by a number of factors, including whether you pay your bills on time — and thus can be trusted with lower interest rate on a loan.  

If you’re a superprime (800s) kind of borrower, you can expect to pay thousands less in interest over the life of the loan than the deep subprime (300 to 500) borrower. 

So what if you’re in the less-than-prime territory? Consider ways to improve your credit score before you buy, shop for a more affordable (perhaps used) set of wheels or find a co-signer who has good credit.

3. Get an Auto Loan Preapproval

Once you know your credit score and how much car you can afford, it’s time to get a loan. And although the dealership may seem like a convenient place to finance your vehicle, it’s also likely the costliest (dealers often make more money on the finder’s fee for your loan than they do on the car itself).

Instead, start shopping online for an auto loan preapproval — a financing offer that includes the maximum loan amount, interest rate and terms of the loan. By shopping online, you can compare offers from multiple lenders without a dealer pressuring you to make a decision on the spot.

Pro Tip

Just because you can get approved for a loan doesn’t mean you need to take the full amount — stick to what your original budget dictated you can comfortably pay monthly.

An auto loan preapproval letter gives you leverage when it comes time to discuss financing — simply present the letter to the dealer and ask them to beat your lender’s offer.

Having a preapproved auto loan could end up saving you thousands in interest and gives you the power to search for the best price on the vehicle rather than being shackled to whichever dealer will offer you financing.

4. Break Free of the Underwater Auto Loan 

All of these tips are great if you’re starting fresh with an auto loan, but what if you’re still paying for your old car — and you owe more than it’s worth (also known as negative equity)?

You have a number of choices for getting out of an underwater auto loan. There are the easy-but-unwise options like rolling over your negative equity, which probably puts you underwater immediately on your new auto loan. Or you can choose the tough-but-sensible options, like holding onto your old hunk of junk until you get your loan back above the waterline.

Breaking the cycle of auto loan debt lets you save on the interest you pay and eventually own your wheels outright. Eliminating that extra debt will put you in the driver’s seat to decide where to spend all that extra cash.

Tiffany Wendeln Connors is a staff writer/editor at The Penny Hoarder. Read her bio and other work here, then catch her on Twitter @TiffanyWendeln.

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

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7 Places to Find Secondhand Gifts Your Friends and Family Will Adore

Gifting your friends and family with something they’ll love this holiday season doesn’t require buying something brand new.

You can save a considerable amount of money by buying used gifts for Christmas instead. Thrift stores and private sellers price merchandise at a fraction of their original cost — not to mention the treasures you might be able to regift without spending a penny.

Before you cringe at the idea, consider this: A recent survey by the selling app Mercari found 60% of people felt comfortable receiving a previously owned gift. 

Likewise, Accenture’s annual holiday shopping survey found more than half of respondents said they’d willingly accept secondhand apparel as gifts this holiday season.

Of course, you’ve got to consider the gift recipient — and the gift. Your vintage-loving sister would appreciate a good thrift store find, and your 2-year-old nephew won’t realize (or care) if his “new” toy truck used to belong to another kid. 

But if your husband has been yearning for a specific tech gadget that just hit the market or your mom wants a 2020 calendar, maybe they aren’t the best candidates to give used gifts for Christmas.

When gifting anything used, examine the item’s condition the best you can. Arrange to meet individual sellers in safe, public places. If you’re purchasing online, vet the website to ensure it’s trustworthy and secure. Check out the reviews or ratings of sellers you buy from.

Opportunities to find pre-owned presents are widespread. Here are seven places to shop for inexpensive gifts this holiday season.

7 Outlets to Find Used Gifts for Christmas

Some places you’ll discover great secondhand gifts (that won’t bust your budget) include:

1. Brick-and-Mortar Thrift Stores and Consignment Shops

Thrift store chains like Goodwill and the Salvation Army have a varied assortment of goods. Proceeds from sales go to community programs that support the nonprofits’ missions. 

You may find for-profit consignment shops in your area have a particular focus, like children’s clothing or men’s fashion.

2. Online Resale Retailers and Private Sellers

Sites like Poshmark, Tradesy and ThredUp are great outlets to find clothing and accessories at a discount. 

Other e-commerce websites, like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, eBay and Mercari, have less of an online store interface. On these sites, private sellers post a variety of previously used products for sale, including toys, tech, furniture and home decor.

3. Yard Sales, Estate Sales or Flea Markets

Yard sales, estate sales and flea markets can include a great array of options You may even find a table of trinkets the seller is giving away for free. 

4. Public Libraries

Occasionally libraries will hold fundraisers where they’ll offer a selection of books for sale. You can find titles for only a couple bucks a pop. It’s a good opportunity to get something for the book lover in your life.

5. Pawn Shops

Disregard the negative reputation that pawn shops (often unfairly) have. This venue is popular for finding jewelry at low prices. You can also find a great assortment of other merchandise — from DVDs to bikes to musical instruments.

6. Buy Nothing Groups

The Buy Nothing community (which connects neighbors via Facebook) provides an opportunity to find a gift that won’t cost you anything. Members of Buy Nothing groups post items they own that they choose to give away for free. 

Search Facebook to see if your community has an active group, and join to see what your neighbors are giving away.

7. Your Own Home

Regifting gets a bad rap, but it’s honestly no different than giving something from a secondhand retailer. The plus? You incur zero cost. 

Consider items you’ve barely or never used, like that waffle maker that’s still in the box from when you got married. Just don’t give someone a present they originally gave to you!

Nicole Dow is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

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

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Inspiration from Edith Wharton, Joshua Waitzkin, Mandy Hale and More

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. Please enjoy the archives of earlier collections of inspirational things.

1. Edith Wharton on trying to be happy

“If only we’d stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.” — Edith Wharton

For a long time, I felt like happiness was something that is a life goal, that there were ways to work toward “becoming” happy. Yet, time and time again, I realized that happiness wasn’t something that came about on its own. Happiness is something that comes about as a result of something else – an achievement, a connection, an experience. Happiness is actually found on the road to those things.

Don’t try to be happy today. Instead, try to do something that you’ve always wanted to do or something big you’ve been putting off. Give yourself a walled-off block of time to engage in a hobby that’s meaningful to you that you don’t give enough time to. Go play with a child or listen to a friend. Help someone.

Make those things routine, and you’ll find happiness along the way. You can’t aim for it, but it will find you.

2. Shannon Lee on what Bruce Lee can teach us about living fully

From the description:

Most of us know Bruce Lee as the famous martial artist and action film star — but he was also a philosopher who taught “self-actualization”: the practice of how to be yourself in the best way possible. In this inspiring talk, Bruce’s daughter Shannon Lee takes us inside the mind of her father, exploring how to use his philosophy in your daily life to achieve profound personal growth and make a lasting impact.

This video is incredibly powerful and a great overview of the idea of “self-actualization” and the life of Bruce Lee, and well worth watching.

I used to have a poster of Bruce Lee on the wall of my dorm room. I bought it at an on-campus poster sale when I was a freshman during a period when I was enamored with his movies and other “kung fu” movies of the 1970s. He was obviously best known as a movie star and a martial arts practitioner, but it’s not why the poster stayed on my wall for two years.

Rather, I watched a short documentary about Lee that was shown after one of his films at a student event on campus. That documentary discussed his idea that knowledge leads to self-knowledge and how your actions are an expression of your values and beliefs. If I believed in a particular idea or value – or thought that I did – and I didn’t express it through action, I didn’t truly believe it, or I believed in some other value more. What is it that I actually value?

It’s questions like these that have really driven my life since I was… well, pretty young, and the idea that knowledge translates into self-knowledge, that you should never stop learning and changing, and your actions are an expression of what you know and value was something that I’ve considered for a lot of my adult life. In a way, most of my life has been a process of learning, honing what I believe, and weeding out actions that aren’t in line with what I belief and leaning into actions that are in line with it, and that Bruce Lee poster was a piece of that journey.

3. Mandy Hale on where you don’t belong

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” – Mandy Hale

There are few things more frustrating and sad than seeing someone you care about stuck in a tough situation that only they can get themselves out of. You know they have the ability to do so, but it’s a hard path to travel. You want to help, but it honestly comes down to their choice, because while you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make them drink.

The thing is, if you’re not happy with the path you’re on, doing nothing and staying on that path will never make it better. If you look around your life and aren’t happy with some aspect of it, not changing anything will not make that aspect better.

Change is hard. Growth is hard. But nothing ever gets better without going through that process. You can’t get over the hill without climbing it.

4. Serene

Serene is an app I’ve been using to help me stay focused when I’m working and not at my desk. I find that I can focus pretty well when I’m at my desk at home. I can shut out distractions and really get down to business there.

Unfortunately, some days, for various reasons, I need to (or want to) work elsewhere, and I run into trouble elsewhere.

I’ve used Serene multiple times when working away from home (with my noise-cancelling headphones and my phone on “do not disturb, but vibrate for specific emergencies” mode) and I found it really helpful for keeping me on task. It blocks some apps of my choice and some websites of my choice (provided I install the browser add-ons) while I’m working on my task, helps me break down today’s main task into smaller pieces and work sessions, and walks me through some steps to get in a good situation for work.

The app’s idea is that there’s one big task you want to complete today and that task can be broken down into some smaller pieces that are individual work sessions. So, for example, if my goal today is to write two articles, I might have six work sessions – outline article A, write a good draft of article A, and edit & submit article A, and the same tasks for article B. The tool then locks down your computer (according to what you set up) while you work through each of those sessions, with breaks in between them.

I’m not a big fan of the audio (yet) — I usually use other audio for focus — but the tool does a really nice job outside of that in terms of creating a focused work environment wherever I’m at. I sometimes just need to get out of the house, even at the cost of productivity.

This app has a permanent place on my laptop. It helped me get a lot of writing done over multiple sessions in an environment where I’ve struggled to work in the past. Highly recommended if you sometimes work on a laptop in different environments and struggle to focus.

5. Richard Feynman on questions and answers

“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” – Richard Feynman

Part of the beauty of the world is the mystery about it, how the entirety of the human race only knows a fraction of what there is to know about the universe, and I can only ever possibly know a small sliver of that.

Life is like laying on your back on a country pasture in the nighttime and staring up at millions of stars. I can’t possibly know the story of each of them, but I can sit back and be awed by their collective beauty.

There doesn’t need to be an answer to everything.

6. Planet Money and rethinking channel surfing

As of late, I’ve been watching Youtube videos while eating lunch. I’ll find a channel that’s interesting and well-executed, turn it on while I’m prepping lunch, and watch a few videos while eating and cleaning up.

The channel I’ve been binging on as of late is Planet Money from NPR, which is a large collection of short videos on specific financial topics, mostly economics, but done in an entertaining way.

I think that channels like this are the ideal replacement for “channel surfing.” They’re free (if you have an internet connection), they’re usually pretty short and bite-sized so they’re good to watch if you’re eating lunch or something, and it’s not a big deal if you miss an episode.

I can list tons of these – Binging with Babish, Pro Home Cooks (formerly Brothers Green), Marques Brownlee, Kurzgesagt, CGP Grey – but there are so many individuals and small groups out there making really thoughtful and thought-provoking and engaging content if you look for it. A lot of Youtube is junk, but if you can find a few channels that actually bring value to you, they provide a pretty good bite for your mind to swallow while your mouth is swallowing lunch.

7. Brianna West on self-care and self-improvement

“True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.⁣” – Brianna West

If I know what things make me unhappy about my life and I choose to do nothing to fix them, I’m essentially choosing to keep that unhappiness in my life. Any “self-care” I do is merely a short term distraction, because the problem remains. Leisure is good for relaxation, but it doesn’t take care of problems.

True self-care comes from doing the hard work to fix problems in your life and make real changes. Self-care isn’t a distraction from a problem, it’s solving a problem (or at least trying to).

If you feel overwhelmed by life, don’t turn to luxuries that distract you from the problems. Identify what’s wrong and work to actually fix it.

8. Jeremy Binns on our picture of life

“What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it’s supposed to be.” – Jeremy Binns

I have this picture in my head of what an “ideal life” should be like. Perfect relationships, perfect marriage, perfect kids, perfect work, perfect house, and so on.

Whenever I compare my life to that “ideal life,” my life looks … shall we say, highly imperfect by comparison. Nothing in my life is perfect. Nothing in my life is ideal.

Yet, lots of things in my life are good, even great. Lots of things in my life are beautiful.

That ideal life cannot exist in the real world. If I constantly compare myself to that, I can’t enjoy what I already have, and what I already have is quite good.

9. Mark Rosewater on twenty years and twenty lessons learned

From the description:

Magic the Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater shares twenty lessons learned over twenty years of designing one of the world’s most popular collectible card games. Watch to learn lessons such as “Restrictions Breed Creativity,” “Fighting Human Nature Is a Losing Battle” and “If Everyone Likes Your Game, But No One Loves It, It Will Fail”.

Yes, this is a video that’s ostensibly about game design, but it’s about so much more than that. Almost everything Mark Rosewater talks about in this video is applicable in some real way to life and, well, to every single creative endeavor we take on in life.

I watched this video recently because of a burgeoning personal interest in game design, but I couldn’t help but think, as I was listening to it, of how many of the ideas really apply to The Simple Dollar and to other creative work I’ve done in my life and, frankly, to a lot of things in my life.

For example, “restriction breeds creativity.” The Simple Dollar’s topic space is a relatively narrow wheelhouse. I try to expand on the idea of “spending less than you earn so you can achieve life goals” – that’s really the core message of the site – in each direction while keeping it as simple as I can. I try to delve into complex ideas, but to the absolute best of my ability, I try to avoid jargon or complicated language (for better or worse). That restricts my topics that I could write about quite a lot and that restriction forces me to be creative. What’s a new angle on this idea? What element haven’t I delved into before, or in a long while?

Or, for example, “if everyone likes your game, but no one loves it, it will fail.” From the get-go, I’ve had a vision in mind of exactly who I’m writing for, and it’s basically myself right at the point when I was earnestly starting my financial turnaround. I was absorbing everything I could about personal finance and what I wanted was clear and friendly voices to give me lots of ideas that I could plug into my life and turn this ship around. The Simple Dollar is a site I would have loved at that point in my life, and I figure that if it’s a site I would have loved, there are probably some people who would love it too. That doesn’t mean that everyone loves it or even that everyone likes it (though that’s nice). I’d rather change one life than mildly amuse a hundred people.

That stuff applies to my life, too. I constantly find that my best solutions for life problems and my best decisions come when there’s a restriction. When I have infinite choices, I just shut down, so I make a restriction right off the bat. Only store brands, maybe, or only stuff without added sugar.

Also, I’ve learned that having a few really close friends and family members — people that love me — is better than a truckload of acquaintances and people who vaguely like me. I’ll take one person that loves me over 50 acquaintances, and that shapes how I build relationships.

You can find really good life lessons in the most unusual of places.

10. Anne Frank on regret versus gratitude

“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.”– Anne Frank

It’s strange how regret is a stronger feeling than gratitude. I think that part of it is that we feel weak when expressing gratitude and love to people in our life, but we often feel more free to express regret because that other person is silent. We’re not expressing that feeling to their face.

It can be hard to express to others what they mean to us now, when they’re living. What if they don’t feel the same way? What if they think I’m silly or foolish?

Trust me, there’s very rarely a time when such an expression won’t at least be very meaningful to them, even if it’s not fully reciprocated. You’ll feel better and so will they.

Don’t hold the gratitude and appreciation in. Let it out before it turns into regret.

11. The Art of Learning: The Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Joshua Waitzkin

I’ve read this book four or five times since it was initially published in 2008. It’s a fantastic book on how to get better at pretty much anything and a wonderful guide to lifetime learning and deliberate practice.

I recently picked it up again, almost on a whim, and read most of it in a single sitting. It reminded me again of the true joy of learning something new and mastering a skill, and it renewed a little fire in my belly for learning and practice, as it does every time.

You cannot get better at the things you dream about by just sitting there.

12. Terry Pratchett on growing older

“Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” – Terry Pratchett

I swear that it was just yesterday that I was 25 years old and working in data mining. It feels like yesterday that I started this site on a whim rather than writing daily material for it as a well-oiled practice. It feels like yesterday that I was holding my first child in my arms rather than teaching him how to drive.

What happened? It’s easy to lose track of the endless flow of hours and days until you wake up one day and look around and things have passed you by.

The one thing I can say about that feeling is this: it should be a reminder to us all to live in the moment, to say the things we want to say but are afraid to, to hug someone and to tell someone they matter, to apologize for a mistake. Leave those things undone and you’ll wake up in a few years wondering what happened.

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