credit cards

Taking your Side Hustle Mobile

December 30, 2017 By Shane Ede Leave a Comment

This post has been brought to you by: SumUp (opinions are still mine though!)

If you’re like me (and you likely are if you’re reading this post), you’ve always got a side hustle or two running at once. You’re always looking for something to augment your income and help you pay off debt (or pay for that extra vacation). This blog is one of mine. I’ve also got a few things that I’ve got posted on my Etsy store. Nearly everything that I do is online. I don’t have to carry inventory, or attend swap meets, or anything of the like. But that’s not the case for all of you.

SumUp EMV card reader — photo credit: SumUp

For some of you, there’s a very good chance that you’ve got to be mobile, and you’ve got to accept payments wherever your customer meets you. In the past, that has meant carrying a bit of cash around to make change with, and when the day has been good, carrying even more cash back with you. That can be dangerous. The other issue you will likely run into is that you’re likely to have a few customers like me who rarely carry more than a few dollars of cash, and want to pay for their purchase with their debit or credit card.

If you are one of those who makes sales while on the go, you need some way to process credit or debit transactions. Not only is it safer than carrying around a bunch of cash, but it will save you a heck of a lot of time and energy when doing your accounting at the end of the day. There are plenty of companies that offer these kinds of services. One that offers up both a super portable card reader and a portable cash register, is a company called SumUp. Unlike some of their competitors, their device connects to an app on your phone (iOS or Android) via bluetooth, getting rid of the dongle approach that can easily break. And there’s a couple of ways that you can accept cards through the device.

Magstripe transactions

This is the old fashioned way of taking a credit transaction. The magnetic strip on the back of the cards holds all the card data. A quick swipe, and the reader reads that data, and processes the transaction. Easy peasy. Most of us are super used to transactions that work this way.

EMV chip transactions

Magstripe is the tried and true transaction process. But it’s also the one that makes it super easy for fraudsters to copy the data from the stripe and use it to perform fraudulent transactions. The EMV chip is the new technology that is meant to help prevent all of that. The chip is embedded in the new cards, and needs to be inserted into the reader. It has to be physically present to work, and it’s not as easily copied. It’s more secure, and it works well.

SumUp’s fees and limits match or best their competition, and their design is pretty cool too. Watch this video to see what it’s all about.

At the end of the day, if you’ve got a side hustle that has to be mobile, you need some sort of mobile card terminal. There are several options out there, and SumUp is just one of those. As the hustler, I would expect you to do your due diligence and make a decision based on what your business needs are. The only thing I can really tell you is that if you don’t have a way to process these sorts of transactions, you’re leaving money on the proverbial table. Don’t do that.

Restrain Holiday Eating and Spending for a Happier New Year

November 23, 2015 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Have you been in this situation before?

You want to start a diet and shed a few pounds, but you decide, since it’s November already, you should just wait until after the holidays. You tell yourself you’ll have a fresh start January 1^st. New year, new life, all that.

This plan may sound good to you, but since you keep thinking about the diet you’re going to start in January, you indulge more than you normally would over the holidays and gain 10 pounds. Now, you have an even bigger job ahead of you come January 1^st.

If you had instead started your new eating plan at the beginning of the holiday season, you would have had better control over your eating. You likely wouldn’t have gained weight. If you were doing great and were motivated, you may have even lost weight, but let’s be honest—even remaining the same weight during the holidays is an accomplishment.

We’re in November, which is when most people are at risk of two negatives—eating too much and spending too much.

Just like the decision to lose weight, many people may decide to start focusing on managing their money better after the holidays. After all, there are so many presents to buy and parties to host. Getting on a budget isn’t possible during the holidays, they think. And then, because they’re not keeping an eye on their finances, they spend lavishly and find themselves facing an exorbitant credit card bill that they can’t pay in full.

Sound familiar?

Why not make this year different?

Yes, the holidays are right around the corner, but it’s not too late to keep your finances in check. Here are some simple strategies:

Don’t give gifts to everyone. If you don’t have a lot of money saved up for gifts, don’t go into debt to buy them. Think about it. Do you remember what gifts you received for Christmas last year? Do you remember who gave them to you?

Yeah, I thought so.

I remember only one gift from last Christmas, even though I got several.

Give a gift that you can pay for later. I love this strategy! If you don’t have a lot of money for holiday gifts but still want to give something, consider offering a gift at a later date. For instance, you could offer a close friend a present of dinner and a movie at a time of her choosing. Maybe she decides in March that she’d like to take you up on the offer. You’ve had three months to save the money for that gift.

Don’t give in to peer pressure. There is an enormous amount of peer pressure during the holiday season to go to parties, bring food, buy gifts for everyone. . .It’s okay to step off this spendthrift merry-go-round and simply say no. You don’t have to go to every party. You don’t have to buy a present for everyone you have contact with in your life.

Just say no.

The next four to six weeks can have a significant impact on the first few months of 2016.

Are you going to indulge occasionally in sweet treats but mostly eat healthy, or are you going to let loose and gain 10 pounds?

Are you going to be financially responsible and only give gifts that you have the means to give, or are you going to charge everything and create a hole that will take you three or four months to dig out of, if not more?

Haven’t you had enough of overindulgent holidays? Wouldn’t you like to start 2016 with a truly fresh start and no extra weight or bills?

Pay Off Your Debt for Good

August 18, 2015 By Nic @ Young and Wealthy Leave a Comment

“There are two ways to enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” There is an ongoing debate on the internet about whether or not that quote was first said by John Adams. Regardless, the quote is very powerful with its meaning. Debt is slavery. With debt you are controlled by the person in which you owe. If you don’t believe me, stop paying your monthly payments on your house, car, or other loans. The bank or other creditor will come along and seize that asset from you or other assets that have been used as collateral. Debt is very powerful and can take a massive financial and psychological toll on us. Paying off our debt can lead to previously unfathomed levels of financial freedom and happiness. I’ve started Young and Wealthy Living to help others realize this dream.

Today, we will observe multiple methods that can be used to pay off different types of debt faster by taking various steps.

The Debt Portfolio

If you’re like most people, you have many different forms of debt. These could be a credit card balance, mortgage, student loans, car payments, or personal loans. If you are looking to make more than just your monthly payments on these loans, I commend you, this is the first step to finally becoming debt free. But you may be wondering, which loans should I put the extra payments toward? To answer this we will use the debt stacking method, as I strongly believe that this is the best way to attack debt. It’s very simple and straightforward. Put extra payments to the debt with the highest interest rate and pay the minimum payments on the rest of the debts. The reason this method works is that over time you will be able to accelerate how quickly all of your debt will be paid off since more and more of your payments will be going towards the principle instead of the interest. Using the debt stacking method you will pay less in total interest and you will have all of your debts paid off faster than if you just used the shotgun approach on your debt.

Student Loans

If you’re like me, you graduated with student loans consisting of private and federal loans. My student loans ranged from 3% interest to 6.8% interest. If you plan on taking the full ten years to pay off your student loans, you could be paying thousands of dollars in interest alone over this time period. If I had only been making the minimum payments on my loans I would have paid over $10,000 in interest alone. To help lower your monthly payments and literally save yourself potentially thousands of dollars in interest, you can consolidate all of your loans into one loan. Yes, you read that correctly. Not only does this give you only one loan to have to keep track of and remember to pay, but it would most likely lower your interest rate and save you money. A couple of good resources for this are Sofi and Earnest. You can also check with local credit unions as many of them offer this service as well. There are a couple things to note, however. First, many services will require that you be employed or have an offer of employment and some might require that you have an emergency fund setup. Continue to make the larger payments you had before consolidating and you will have your student loans paid off ahead of time!

The average credit card debt for American adults with a credit card is $5,047 according to creditcards.com. Unfortunately, credit card debt is usually the most painful because it typically carries the highest interest rate of debts people are likely to have. It is not unlikely to see credit cards with an APR of 15% to 24%. If you are carrying a large balance on your credit card you can expect to pay thousands of dollars in interest before your card is paid off and have it take years to do. The key to lowering your payments on the credit card debt is to lower your interest rate. This will allow you to pay off that debt faster and potentially saving you thousands in interest payments.

The first method here if you have a high credit card balance and are struggling to make your payments is to transfer your balance to a new card that offers an introductory offer of 0% interest on balance transfers. A couple of great cards for this are the Chase Slate and Discover It cards. This introductory rate is only good for a period of time however, typically 12 to 21 months, before it increases to the typical 15% – 24%, so you should be paying as much as possible during this time as 100% of your payments would be going towards the principle. Again, there are a couple things to note here. Sometimes there is a fee to transfer a balance, oftentimes of 3% – 5% and you will need good to excellent credit to qualify for the best offers.

Another method you should try if you have not already: simply ask. Just call up the credit card company, be very polite, and explain to them that you would love to pay off your credit card debt but the current interest rate makes it very difficult for you to make extra payments. Then ask them if they could lower your interest rate for you. You may initially get a ‘no’ but it is very likely that you will need to go through several people in the company before you reach someone that has the authority to negotiate this. Just remember to be polite to the person on the other end of the phone and they will be willing to pass you along to someone who can help.

You may think the credit card company doesn’t care about you and if you can make your payments or not. But the truth is they absolutely want you to make your payments and have a payment plan you can afford. They would much rather work with you and have you pay off your debt than to sell your debt to a collections company for pennies on the dollar.

Of course, these are not the only methods you can use to decrease payments and pay debt off faster but we all have our favorites and those we believe to be the most effective. Recognize how debt has the ability to control you and make a plan to attack it and you will be well on your way to wiping out your debt and becoming debt free! Feel free to share your debt elimination plans and stories with me by emailing me at nic@youngandwealthyliving.com. Together we can conquer our debt and be on the path to financial freedom!