Finance Xpress

The following is a sponsored post with Creditrepair.com.

Are you looking to improve your credit score and your credit history? As you recently learned in What makes you a good candidate for credit repair?, your credit score is so important!

As a refresher, your credit score can influence the interest rate you receive on a loan, buying a home, finding a rental home, attaining certain jobs, your insurance rates, and more.

If you're receiving a tax refund this year, I recommend using it to your advantage and improve your life first. Yes, splurges are great, but if you have a low or not-excellent credit score and credit history, I recommend using your tax refund towards this instead.

Here are some ways you can use your tax refund to repair your credit.

Pay off anything you have in collections.

If you're receiving a tax refund but also have bills in collections, then you should probably be thinking about paying those off instead of spending your tax refund on “wants” instead of “needs.”

This can help you to repair your credit because bills in collections hurt your credit score and credit history.

Pay down your debt.

Do you have credit card debt? If you're carrying a balance month to month and are paying interest fees, then one of the top things that you will probably want to do with your tax refund is pay off your debt.

Paying down your debt can help your credit score as your utilization rate will go down.

Maintaining a low credit utilization, which means having access to credit but only using about 30% or less of your available limit. If your credit card balance is generally more than 30% of your credit limit, your score could be lowered.

Put it in your emergency fund.

Do you have an emergency fund yet?

If you don't have a fully funded emergency fund, using your tax return money can be great use to get you started!

Emergency funds are always good to have because they can give you peace of mind if anything costly were to happen in your life. Instead of building onto your stress because of whatever has happened, at least you know you can afford to pay your bills and worry about more important things.

An emergency fund is also wise to have because it can help prevent unnecessary debt. There are too many people out there who count on their credit cards as their emergency fund and that is not a good idea. It can lead to debt spiraling out of control because of high interest rates.

Pay for credit repair help.

If you need credit repair help, then using your tax refund to get expert help can be a great idea.

If you have negative items on your credit report, than a credit repair company can help you do this for you. Yes, you may be able to do this yourself, but a company can probably complete the task easier and more efficiently because they have the experience and know-how.

If you're looking for professional credit repair services, then I recommend looking into CreditRepair.com. There is a low monthly cost, and it can be a great way to use your tax refund to your advantage.

CreditRepair.com is easy:

1. First, they analyze your credit report and identify the negative items which are hurting your credit score. In this step, they build a game plan to help you.
2. After that, next in the process, CreditRepair.com challenges the negative items in your credit report and try to get them removed if they are inaccurate.

Previous clients of CreditRepair.com have seen an average of a 40 point increase in their credit score during just four months of membership.

CreditRepair.com helps consumers use their legal rights to fair credit reporting, which helps them to improve their credit score.

This can then allow your credit score to have a more positive impact on your life!

Please click here to check out CreditRepair.com.

What are you doing with your tax refund this year?

The post How to use your tax refund to repair your credit appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.

Hey!

Looking to gain access to some of the best financial resources out there?

Do you want to save for retirement, pay off debt, start investing, go on vacations, and more?

Being in control of my money and personal finance situation has cut my stress significantly, so I’m always looking for products to recommend that will help you do the same.

And, this is why I highly recommend the Master Your Money Super Bundle. When you buy the Master Your Money Super Bundle you’ll gain access to:

• 13 eBooks
• 10 eCourses
• 11 video presentations
• 9 printables & workbooks

And, it's super affordable! Some of the best financial experts out there have come together to sell all of their resources together in a nice package. You can receive 45 financial resources with a value of $1,206.41, for just $37!

Yes, $37.

Examples of some of the amazing resources that you can receive in this money bundle include:

• The Financial Renovation, eCourse by Lauren Greutman ($99.00 value). This course helps families create financial freedom by sharing simple, easy ways to take back control of their money, live within their means, and create the simpler, happier life they’ve always dreamed of.
• Debt Free in 18 Months, eCourse by Deacon Hayes ($67.00 value).
• DIY Financial Planning: Home Purchase, eCourse by Marriage Money Bootcamp ($80.00 value). This is a step-by-step video course for creating a financial plan for your first home purchase.
  
• How To Be Frugal, eCourse by Jennifer Roskamp ($99.00 value). This self paced course teaches you how to create a budget, how to feed a family frugally, how to shop smart both online and in the store, how to use coupons, how to save money around your home, and so much more.
  
• The 4% Rule: Safe Withdrawal Rates In Retirement, eBook by Todd Tresidder ($4.99 value). The knowledge contained in this book will help you remove the uncertainty around retirement savings and deepen your understanding of strategies other than the 4% rule so you can retire worry-free.
  
• Full-Time RV Finance: Learn How to Afford Your Full-Time RV Travel Dreams, eBook by Sean & Julie Chickery ($3.99 value). Helps you prepare financially for the full-time RV lifestyle.
  
• Financial Freedom Planner, Workbook by Jen Smith ($19.00 value). An all-in-one guide to help you make long-term financial goals and short-term action plans that will get you to financial freedom faster.
  
• How I Made Over $12,000 Investing When The Stock Market Was Falling, Video presentation by Teri Ijeoma ($19.00 value). Teaches you the top four secrets to make regular daily or weekly income using the stock market.
  
• Teaching Kids About Money: Practical Ways to Raise Financially Savvy Kids, Video presentation by Brendie Heter ($19.00 value). Shows parents how to take advantage of every day “teachable moments” and change the financial path of the next generation. Brendie, a trained financial coach, wants parents to feel confident regarding this sometimes overwhelming topic.
  
• Money Talks: The Ultimate Couple's Guide To Communicating About Money, eBook by Talaat & Tai McNeely ($9.99 value). Helps you open the lines of communication with your spouse, and reveals how you and your spouse can align yourselves together financially.
  
• How to Financially Prepare your Family for a New Baby, Video presentation by Lauren Daly ($19.00 value). Lauren shares how her family saved thousands for their new baby, and how they came up with just how much they need.
  

And there are so many other great resources as well!

Common questions about this deal

Many of you have asked me questions about the bundle, and I completely understand. It's a lot of products for a very low price, and you may not have come across something like this before.

Q1: Is this one big course? Or a bunch of different products?

This bundle is a collection of 14 eBooks, 10 eCourses, 11 video presentations, and 10 workbooks and printables. Inside this bundle, you will find tons of resources to help pay off debt, budget like a boss, and reach your financial goals, and so much more. It’s basically one big financial library – all for $37.

Q2: What am I going to do with so many resources?

There is no way on earth each of these eBooks / eCourses is relevant to where you are right now. Some of them will have a lot of appeal, and some won’t. But in most cases, it only takes 3 or 4 eBooks or eCourses that you’re going to use for you to start saving money.Not to mention, there are 8 resources alone that are worth as much or more than the cost of the bundle itself. So, even though you won’t use every resource in the bundle, it would still be really hard to not save a ton of money anyway.

Q3: How do I know I’m actually getting good quality products and not just a bunch of “throw-away” eBooks?

The Ultimate Bundles team spends months reviewing potential contributors, approaches only the best for inclusion, and then only accepts the top products that they think will have the most appeal out of those. Many of these are even full-length eCourses with video tutorials! They are highly selective and it shows in the final curated collection.

Q4: What's the refund policy?

Although Ultimate Bundles has an extremely low return rate at less than 1/4 of the industry standard, there are some people who it doesn’t work for. That’s why they offer a 100% happiness guarantee refund policy for 30 days. If you don’t love it, just email customerservice@ultimatebundles.com to ask for a full refund.

Q6: This sounds like a scam. Can you prove it’s not?

I know it seems too good to be true. Pay $37 for $1,211.67 in resources? Doesn’t that mean someone’s losing big time? Or the prices are inflated?

I totally get your concerns. I’ve been an affiliate for Ultimate Bundles for years and I can tell you that I offer these bundles to my readers because they’re a great value. Even though a blogger may be including their product in a bundle that costs less than their product, product creators get exposure to new potential readers, which can pay off in big ways later. Plus, the bundle is offered for such a short time that they can go back quickly to selling their product at full price.

In short, it’s a great deal for everyone. Ultimate Bundles is a reputable company, so if you try the bundle and don’t like it within 30 days, just ask their friendly, helpful customer happiness team for a refund.

Q7: How long do I have access to the material?

You’ll have 6 months to download your eBooks and register for your eCourses. After that, you’ll have access to all the eBooks and many of the eCourses for life, so there’s really no rush.

Q8: Can I buy the bundle later?

I wish I could let you, but I can’t. In order to convince the partners to offer such a huge discount on their trainings, they’ve agreed to sell the bundle for a 6 day period only. After that, there will be no late sales.

I hope that answers your questions!

In my opinion, you really don’t want to pass up a deal this good. But I’ll leave that up to you. Just don’t wait too long, because the sale ends soon!

Check out the Master Your Money Super Bundle right here.

Thanks!

Michelle

The post 45 financial resources with a value of $1,206.41, for just $37! appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.

Looking for a loan? This is a great place to start. Monevo is free to use and can give you options in seconds. We’ll go through the pros and cons in our Monevo Review.

Monevo

's rating

9.3

Interest Rates 8.5

Fees 10.0

Customer Service 9.0

Technology 9.8

Pros

• Easy and quick application
• Real-time offers
• Applications won’t impact your credit score
• Free to use
• High loan amounts

Cons

• Some lenders are excluded
• You'll probably get solicited
• It’s not the best for all loan purposes
• No BBB certification

Try Monevo

Getting a personal loan is easier today than ever before. Long gone are the days of visiting your local bank branch and sitting down with a loan officer. Now, you can simply apply online for the loan you need, often in seconds, and wait for offers to roll in. This not only makes the process fast and easy, but also allows you to compare different lenders and find the rate you want.

Monevo is one of the companies that seeks to make personal loans quick and convenient. The online platform connects borrowers with lenders around the country, letting you easily compare multiple loans in one place.

Through Monevo, you’ll be matched with loans of up to $100,000 with interest rates ranging from 3.99% to 35.99% APR; finding this many competitive options could take you hours to do individually. With Monevo, you can do it in about 60 seconds.

So, what makes Monevo different than other lending platforms, and why should you consider this website when you’re ready to borrow?

What Is Monevo?

Founded in 2009 in the UK, but somewhat new to the U.S. scene, Monevo is yet another online loan matching platform. It seeks to connect borrowers who need funds with lenders who offer loans.

The difference between Monevo and all of the other aggregate websites out there is that Monevo works in real-time to get you the most up-to-date and accurate rates possible. This means that rather than getting generic, pre-set loan options (which may or may not match the actual loan offer you’re given in the end), Monevo will use their award-winning technology to communicate with lenders at the moment you submit your request.

They will submit your information and loan request to their lenders through an embedded API on their site. This allows Monevo to provide borrowers with any and all partner lenders who are willing to make an offer, along with up-to-the-minute rates and accurate terms.

Because Monevo works in real-time, borrowers are typically able to compare competitive offers from more lenders. This also allows them to get updated, and often lower, rates than elsewhere.

Try Monevo

Monevo Features

Monevo’s platform is easy-to-use and simple to navigate. This makes getting a personal loan faster than ever, while also ensuring that you don’t deal with the runaround that can be found elsewhere: out-of-date rates and baiting offers that magically change when you go to complete the borrowing process.

After submitting a lending request through Monevo’s simple platform, borrowers will be matched with an impressive number of offers.

Get loan offers in seconds.

These offers will automatically be sorted by lowest APR, allowing you to immediately see the most competitive offer for which you qualify.

From there, you can sort offers according to other specifications. You can browse based on loan terms available, specific lenders who are making an offer, and even the total loan amount when all is said and done.

Once you thoroughly compare your offers and decide which one is right for you, you can click through to complete the process. Monevo will transfer you to your chosen lender’s website, where you will fill out any additional paperwork, give your disbursement preferences, and even link up a bank account for monthly payments.

Monevo Pricing

Monevo is completely free for borrowers to use. You won’t pay a single penny to be matched with multiple loan offers on the site, and you won’t owe anything if and when you choose the loan you want.

Instead, Monevo makes their money from the lenders with whom you’ll match on the site. They will collect a fee from the lender once you choose your loan, complete the application process, and receive your disbursement.

Try Monevo

How Do You Apply for Monevo?

Monevo makes it easy to apply online, with most applicants finding that the process takes as little as 60 seconds.

From the homepage you can simply select your desired loan amount, from as little as $1,000 all the way up to $100,000. Then, choose the purpose for the loan and your estimated credit score to begin the process.

Easy to use.

Monevo will want to know a few personal details about you in the next step. These include your:

• Name
• Address (and your monthly payment on that home)
• Date of birth
• Email address
• SSN
• Vehicle ownership status
• Highest education level
• Employment status
• Pre-tax income

Once you’ve provided all of this information, you will submit your loan request. While you do need to agree that your information will be shared with your chosen lending partner (who may then choose to conduct a hard inquiry), Monevo’s application will not impact your credit. This pre-qualification process only utilizes a soft pull, which will not show up on your credit report as an inquiry.

Monevo Security

Your provided information will be shared with potential lenders, in order to accurately match you with offers for which you qualify. However, Monevo takes your privacy very seriously. Any information transmitted and/or stored is protected with SSL encryption.

Mobile Accessibility

There is no mobile app for Monevo. However, their website is mobile-friendly and will make your application process simple whether you’re visiting from your desktop or a smartphone/tablet.

Try Monevo

Customer Service and Support

Have concerns about your personal loan application? You can email Monevo anytime at support@monevo.com. If you want to speak with a real person, they have phone numbers available online. There are four customer service regions to choose from: UK, USA, Australia, and Poland.

If you have questions or concerns about your specific loan offers, or the loan you choose to move forward with, you’re always able to contact that lender directly. Monevo’s job is just to connect you with those lenders, so they don’t have any role in the process moving forward.

Monevo Pros and Cons

There are plenty of reasons that you’ll want to consider Monevo for your next personal loan application. There are also a few things to keep in mind.

Try Monevo

Monevo Alternatives

As great as Monevo is, it’s not the only borrower-lender platform around. If you want to get a second opinion, there are a few other great options to choose from. Some of them don’t offer loans as flexible–or with as low of rates–as Monevo, but they’re still great platforms to consider.

• Prosper: This P2P lending platform connects borrowers needing loans between $2,000 and $40,000 with lenders wanting to loan funds. Rates range from 6.95% and 35.99% APR, with 2.4% to 5% origination fees.
• LendingClub: Another P2P option, here, you can apply for loans from $1,000 to $40,000, at rates between 6.95% and 35.89% APR. Loan terms are between 36 and 60 months, and there is a 1-3% fee.
• SoFi: This lending platform is best known for student loan refinancing, but also offers personal loan options. You can apply for loans between $5,000 and $100,000, at rates between 5.74% and 16.49% APR, depending on whether you choose auto-pay and whether you choose a fixed or variable rate. There are no origination fees through SoFi.
• EVEN Financial: EVEN is very much like Monevo in that it’s not exactly a lender, but more of a lending aggregator. EVEN will scour the internet for the lowest rates for your own personal needs, and they’ll send you to one of their lending partners. Their sign up form is a bit more in depth than Monevo’s, but they’re definitely worth checking out.

Is Monevo Right for You?

If you’re looking for a quick loan application that can get you real-time offers in as little as a minute or two, you’ll find what you need with Monevo. The aggregator’s award-winning technology will find you up-to-the-minute offers from real lenders, based on your personal information.

Their pool of lenders is large but doesn’t include everyone, so you may still want to shop around a bit before signing on any dotted lines. However, if you want to get an accurate loan offer for anywhere from $1,000 to $100,000 (and at rates as low as 3.99% APR!), the free application through Monevo is an excellent place to start.

As long as you are 18 years old, an American citizen (UK, Australia, and Poland citizens can utilize Monevo’s foreign platforms), have a checking account, and have a credit score of Fair or better, you can apply.

Bottom Line

When searching for a loan, finding the terms and rates that are best for you can be tricky. By applying through Monevo, you’ll not only get free offers in real-time, but you’ll also be able to take advantage of some of the most competitive offers on the market.

Give Monevo a try the next time you need a personal loan, big or small.

Try Monevo

The post Monevo Review – An Excellent Place to Begin Your Loan Search appeared first on The Dough Roller.

Today, I have a guest post from Marc from Vital Dollar. He is sharing how he had a few photography-related websites and even with no real photography experience, was quite successful with them. Hopefully, you'll find this super encouraging like I did. Enjoy!

Photography can be a tough industry. While high-profile photographers can make a lot of money, most photographers struggle to make a good income from their work.

Many photographers need to do a few different things in order to earn a full-time income. Things like freelance writing for photography blogs or magazines, writing books or ebooks, creating online courses or other digital products, running workshops and seminars, licensing stock photos, and selling prints are all possible supplements to income made from client work.

Although I enjoy photography, I’m not a professional. I’ve never sold my photos and I’ve never been paid to take photos for clients. However, I was able to make more than $1 million in the photography industry over the course of about six years (2012 – 2018).

Related content:

• 12 Work From Home Jobs That Can Earn You $1,000+ Each Month
• The exact template that helped my site earn $95,000 in affiliate income last year
• How This 34 Year Old Owns 7 Rental Homes

I didn’t try to make money photographing weddings or by photographing for magazines. There are countless photographers more talented than I am, so I knew those weren’t good options.

Instead, I used blogging and digital products to make money in the photography industry.

During those six years, I started a few different photography blogs. I made around $550,000 while I was managing those blogs, and I made a combined $700,000 when I sold the blogs (I’m not running any photography blogs currently).  After my expenses for running the blogs, it came out to $1,138,610 in net income during those six years.

Not only was it a pretty good source of income, but it also gave me the chance to improve my own photography while I worked on something that I enjoyed.

I was able to travel to some beautiful places as a part of my work. Hiking through a National Park can be a great way to spend your work day! (Getting up at 3:00 am to be at the right spot for sunrise is not so fun, but every job comes with some sacrifices.)

I believe that my approach to making money from a photography hobby is something that could be applied to other hobbies or interests that you have, and we’ll look at those specifics later in the article.

How I Got Started with Photography

For most of my life, I had no interest in photography. But sometime around 2010 I started taking photographs of textures to be used in graphic design. At the time I had a web design blog, and many design blogs were giving away or selling textures that other designers could use in their own creations. For example, a rusty metal texture could be used as the background for a poster design.

I wanted some textures to give away on my blog, so I would take my camera out to a park and photograph whatever textures I could find. It would be things like large stones, grungy concrete surfaces, brick walls, rusty trash cans, or anything else that caught my interest.

When I would photograph textures I’d try to go out at times when people wouldn’t be around, because you get a lot of strange looks when you’re photographing the ground or a trash can.

I had to learn how to use my camera in manual mode in order to get the best photos. It was kind of a pain at first, but the more I learned, the more I liked photography.

Over the next year or two, trips with my wife to the Grand Canyon and to Europe took my small interest in photography and made it into something much bigger.

As I was learning about photography, I was visiting a lot of websites and blogs and I noticed that there were many different types of digital products being sold to photographers, both hobbyists and professionals. Things like ebooks, courses, software, plugins, apps, templates for marketing materials, card templates, photo overlays, Photoshop actions, Lightroom presets, contract templates, business forms, and more.

I wondered if I could create (or hire someone to create) digital products and sell them to others who had an interest in photography.

The Process for Monetizing My Photography Hobby

At this point, I was intrigued about the possibility of making money with my photography hobby. I had been blogging for a few years (on subjects other than photography), so I thought I could probably incorporate blogging with photography.

Here are the steps I followed.

Step 1: Created Digital Products

To get started, I hired people to create a few products for me, with a budget of about $300. I had experience with Photoshop, so I was also able to create some of my own digital products. These were low-ticket products that would sell for a few dollars each, and then I also had a bundle that included all of the products together.

I’m not able to list the domain names of my former sites or the exact products that I sold because of confidentiality agreements. However, if you visit a deal site like PhotoWhoa you can see many examples of products being sold in the industry. The products I sold would fit in here. Each product at my sites would be priced between $5 – $99 for an instant download.

I chose these types of products for a few reasons:

1. They are relatively easy and inexpensive to create.
2. They are more of an impulse buy and if you’re just getting started they are a little easier to sell than an expensive product like a high-end course.
3. You can create a lot of small, inexpensive products and bundle them together. The bundle price is higher than the price of a single product, but much lower than the price of buying everything individually. You can show this as a big discount, and get higher conversions because of the value. It’s basically the same concept used by sites like Ultimate Bundles, but on a smaller scale.

The initial product creation phase took me about a month or two. It was just a part-time project in my spare time, otherwise it could have been completed faster.

Step 2: Set Up a Basic Website

I set up a very basic WordPress website to display the products (see this page for WordPress installation instructions). The website had a simple shopping cart to allow visitors to buy the products, but I had no traffic and I didn’t anticipate many sales coming through the website at first.

Step 3: Contacted Third-Party Websites

My first attempt at making money with the products involved reaching out to a few daily deal websites that sold products to photographers and designers. These sites already had audiences of buyers and I could partner with them to sell my product, and we’d split the revenue.

These sites would offer the bundle of all my products to their audience at a discounted price. The amount I made on each sale was pretty small, but there was potential to do a large volume of sales.

Ultimately, I wanted to be able to sell the products through my own website instead of through third-party sites that would take a big chunk of the revenue, but I knew it would take time to build up traffic to my own website. Selling on third-party websites allowed me to quickly test the demand for my products and start making some money, even if it wasn’t a lot.

My first deal was on a small site. I knew it wouldn’t generate a lot of money, but I wanted to test things out before trying to line up promos on bigger sites. That deal made me several hundred dollars, which helped me to know that there was a demand for the products.

Once I had confidence that the first deal was a success on a small scale, I started reaching out to some other deal sites.

Note: If you’re thinking about how you would apply this concept to a different niche, you may be unsure how to find these types of sites. Essentially, all we’re really trying to do here is leverage someone else’s existing audience. Let’s take a look at a few options.

First, there are marketplaces like Etsy, Creative Market, Envato Market, Redbubble, and stock photo marketplaces where you can sell your products. Depending on the niche you’re in, there may or may not be something similar.

Second, many niches have daily deal websites that reach a targeted audience. Some sites like Ultimate Bundles reach large audiences in many different niches. AppSumo (tech and software), MightyDeals (design), Peachy Cheap (scrapbooking), and Spa Week (spa and wellness) are just a few examples of niche deal sites. These types of sites partner with product creators to sell products. Search your niche and you may find some good options.

In addition to the niche deal sites, depending on the product you are selling, you may also be able to partner with larger deal sites like Groupon. There are also local deal sites in many locations, so there may be some options in your area.

Third, if these types of deal sites don’t seem to be an option for you, consider finding affiliates to promote your products. If you can partner with affiliates who have an email list and/or blog audience you can get the same results, or even better.

Offer a coupon code or exclusive discount that affiliates can use to promote your products to their audience. Look for blogs that already promote other products in your niche as an affiliate, and reach out to them about the possibility of giving a special offer on your product to their audience.

Step 4: Created More Products

The first few deals went well (my share from the best deal was $10,000), but through these deals I was selling a bundle of all of my current products. That means I had nothing else to offer customers for future sales, and it also limited the number of promos and deals I could run on third-party sites. I couldn’t keep running the same deal over and over.

So my next step was to add more products. I created some on my own, but I also hired freelancers to create products that I wasn’t able to create myself. Thankfully, the deals I was running on third-party sites provided plenty of money for me to pay for the development of these new products.

With more products, I was able to create other bundles and sell them on the same deal sites that I had used earlier.

I also started selling some of my products on marketplaces like Etsy and Creative Market.

Step 5: Used the Blog to Get More Traffic

By this stage, I was bringing in decent money from sales on third-party sites (a few thousand dollars per month), but it was inconsistent. My long-term goal was to have enough traffic coming to my own site that I wouldn’t need to rely on third-party sites for sales.

I started to drive traffic to my blog by posting articles related to different aspects of photography. Since I wasn’t an expert photographer I hired a few freelancers to write detailed tutorials that I wouldn’t have been able to write myself. I did publish some of my own content, but it was mostly inspirational showcases and list posts.

The blog posts started to bring some traffic. Once visitors arrived on the blog they saw ads for my products, and slowly I started making more sales directly through my site.

Pinterest was a good source of traffic, and as time went on, Google search traffic became more significant as well.

Building up the blog also opened up the possibility of other revenue streams. While I made 80-90% of my money from these sites by selling my own digital products, I did supplement that with a small amount of revenue from promoting products as an affiliate. I didn’t promote products that were in direct competition with my own, but I did promote some complimentary products.  

If I had held on to the blogs I would have looked into the possibility of also using sponsored content to monetize the blog. That should have been a good option as the traffic and reach increased.

Step 6: Used Freebies to Get Links, Traffic, and Subscribers

Probably the best strategy I used for driving traffic was creating freebies to give away on my blog. The freebies were basically a limited version of the products that I sold, and to get the freebies people would have to opt into my email list.

At first, I reached out to some other blogs and websites to get a link to my freebies from their photography resource pages. That approach led to some links that sent targeted traffic day-after-day.

And after the freebies got a little bit of exposure, a lot of other blogs started linking to them without any effort on my part.

Those links wound up sending a nice, consistent flow of traffic, and many of those visitors turned into email subscribers.

The freebies allowed people to try my products without paying anything, and some of them wound up buying from me. As the email list grew, so did my sales.

The email list also helped me with the occasional promotion of products as an affiliate.

At this stage:

• I had a growing collection of low-ticket products (I was still adding more products)
• The products were still making some sales on third-party sites
• Traffic and sales at my own site were growing, thanks to the blog posts and freebies
• My email list was growing every day

Step 7: Duplicated the Process

Now that I had a site that was doing pretty well, I decided to start another similar site. This second site also sold low-ticket digital products to photographers, but the specific products were a little different than the ones I had been selling on my first site.

With the second site I took the same exact approach of using a blog and freebies to build an email list, and I also ran some deals at third-party sites. Within just a few months this site started making sales consistently just through organic traffic.

A few months after starting the second site, I actually decided to start a third photography blog/website. I took basically the same approach with the third site, except it was a niche website on a particular type of photography. I created only a few different products that were higher-priced, rather than having a lot of lower-priced products.

Step 8: Watched Sales Increase as Traffic and Subscribers Grew

2015 was the year it all started coming together. My three blogs were growing nicely, and by the end of the year I was making $15,000 – $20,000 per month, working part-time on these sites (I had another business going at the time).

By now I was seeing the results of the work I had put in earlier.

Step 9: Sold the Blogs

Early in 2016, I sold two of my photography blogs for $500,000, but I kept the third one. Over the next couple of years, I continued working on that blog by focusing on growing the email list and selling digital products. I continued to write some of the blog content myself, and I also had a few different freelancers that would write content for me as well.

In August of 2018, I sold that blog for $216,000 ($194,400 after broker fees) when I was ready to move on and do something else.

The sale of that blog put me over the $1 million mark (in terms of net income) with the photography blogs that started as a hobby.

Selling a website or blog is a personal decision and there are a lot of factors that need to be considered. Yes, I did lose the ongoing income by selling each of these sites/blogs, but I also freed up my time to work on other things.

If you do decide that selling a website or blog could be a good option for you, getting 2 or 3 years’ worth of profit when you are ready to walk away is a nice way to boost your income quickly.

Conclusion:

Although my process involved several different steps, the most important part of the process boils down to a few things:

• The creation of digital products.
• Leveraging other people’s audience to make sales (I mostly used daily deal sites, but you could take a similar approach to get others to promote your products as an affiliate).
• The use of freebies to generate traffic and grow an email list.
• Using the email list to make more sales.

I’m a big fan of finding ways to monetize a hobby, because it makes working a lot more fun. If you have a hobby that you’d like to monetize I’d recommend thinking about the types of digital products that you could create and use a blog to sell them.

Marc runs a personal finance blog, Vital Dollar. He’s been working online full-time since 2008 and has written a free report on How to Make Money with Your Hobby.

The post How I Made Over $1,000,000 in Photography Without Being a Pro appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.

Struggling to manage your 401(k)? Do you wish you had a highly intelligent robot to do it for you? Your wish has been granted (well, it’s not an actual robot but you get the point). Here’s our review of blooom.

blooom

's rating

9.5

Cost 9.5

Features 9.8

Ease of Use 9.8

Technology 9.8

Customer Service 8.8

Pros

• Reasonable fee
• Works with all employer sponsored 401(k) plans
• No account minimum
• Suspicious activity alerts
• Hybrid management available

Cons

• Only for employer sponsored retirement accounts
• Fee can be high for accounts with low balances
• No customer service phone support available

Try Blooom

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re all alone when it comes to your employer sponsored retirement plan? It very well may be the single biggest financial asset account you have, and you’re thankful your employer offers the plan. But managing it, particularly the investment allocation part, is an ongoing struggle. If it is, help is just a click away. A service called blooom is available, and it works specifically with employer sponsored retirement plans.

The company claims it’s saved clients more than $600 million in collective lifetime fees. If you want to get in on the savings–and get help with managing your retirement plan–read on.

blooom Website

About Blooom

Founded in 2013, and based in Leawood, Kansas, blooom is a registered investment advisory that’s in the business of managing employer sponsored retirement plans. This is a fairly rare but incredibly necessary service. Millions of people participate in these retirement plans, and are usually left to their own devices to make investment decisions.

blooom manages employer sponsored retirement plans. The company claims to be the only robo-advisor focused specifically on 401(k) plans. The service is not available for taxable accounts, which is increasingly the domain of robo-advisors. In fact, it doesn’t even manage IRA accounts.

Employer sponsored retirement plans managed by blooom include:

• 401(k)
• 403(b)
• 401(a)
• 457
• Thrift Savings Plan (TSP)

Blooom is a robo investing service that can manage an employer plan no matter where it’s held. Sign up for the service yourself and use it for your plan, and there is no requirement for your employer to participate.
What’s more, blooom acts as a fiduciary. This means they are required by law to act in your best interests. Unlike some investment brokers, they don’t favor proprietary investments, that may be more fee-friendly to the broker. blooom works strictly with the investment options offered within your plan.

How Blooom Works

When you work with blooom, the service only manages your plan. You are the owner of the plan, and still retain complete control. And given that it’s an employer sponsored plan, there’s no need to move your account to a different platform. Blooom does not take custody of your plan.

Once you sign up for the service, blooom will adjust your portfolio allocation within 10 to 30 days. The allocation will be based on your investment time horizon, and will adjust accordingly. For example, the closer you are to your retirement age, the larger the bond allocation will be. If you’re farther away from retirement, your portfolio will be allocated primarily to stocks.

They start by looking at the investments available in your plan. These are more limited in some, and more generous in others. The emphasis will be on index funds that track the market, though they may occasionally use an actively managed fund if they consider it to be to your advantage. They’ll also eliminate funds that don’t make sense for your retirement goals.

Funds are selected by the blooom algorithm, based on a combination of fund expenses and the investment experience of the fund manager.

Blooom then monitors your account continuously for any changes in the funds available in your account.

Investment Fee Minimization

This is one of the most important services blooom provides. They actively look to help you avoid paying the fees that are inherent in the investment process.

They do this in one of three ways:

• Exposing hidden investment management fees, buried in certain investment funds. These include fees that are deducted from your fund balance each year, so you may not even know you’re paying them.
• Eliminating managed accounts. Some employer sponsored retirement plans work with investment brokers that offer investment management for a fee. blooom will move you away from these arrangements, since they often steer you into broker sponsored funds that may not be in your best interests.
• Avoiding target date funds. These are sometimes referred to as a “fund of funds.” They invest in a mix of funds that are based on your age and retirement date. They’re good in theory, and growing in popularity. But the downside is that they charge very high fees.

Company Stock

It’s common for 401(k) plans to hold at least some money in company stock. Blooom recognizes this, but recommends company stock positions be held to not more than 20% of your total portfolio. They will not manage this portion of your plan, but they will recommend selling off stock in excess of 20% of your plan.

Dealing with Down Markets

Blooom’s position on market drops is that they are a time to increase holdings. As part of their rebalancing strategy, they will extract some money from the investments that have been doing the best, and add them to the positions that have done the worst. That could also include reducing your bond allocation, and increasing your stock position that has declined in value.

Self-directed Brokerage Accounts

Blooom will only manage the portion of your plan that is not self-directed. In that way, you can have part of your retirement plan managed by blooom, while going the DIY route with the rest of your plan.

blooom Features and Benefits

Hidden fee calculator. Since blooom is all about reducing the fees you pay in your retirement plan, they offer this tool to show you how much fees are costing you over several decades. When you see how much that number can be, the monthly fee charged by blooom will seem like a drop in the bucket compared to what you’ll be saving.

Save money with the hidden fee savings calculator.

Account rebalancing. Naturally the biggest rebalancing will be the first one, where your retirement portfolio is completely rearranged. Rebalancing will be a regular occurrence. This will be especially important if your employer plan changes investment options, or even investment brokers. Your retirement portfolio will then be rebalanced accordingly, based on the new options available.

Suspicious activity alerts. Most of us don’t think of identity theft or fraudulent activity in connection with retirement plans, especially those of the employer sponsored variety. But they actually can happen, and blooom works to prevent it. You’ll get text message alerts whenever funds are withdrawn from your retirement plan, or there’s any suspicious activity in the account.

Access to financial advisors. Blooom financial advisors are available anytime you have a question about your retirement plan.

Customer support. You can contact blooom by either live chat, or an email message form on the website. There is however no direct phone contact offered. Customer support is available Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, except holidays, Central time. Email inquiries after regular business hours will receive a response on the next business day.

Security. Blooom uses 56 bit encryption on their website to mak=e sure your data remains private. They also use bank level security for all personal information, as well as secure servers to protect information during online transactions. They also use third party verification to confirm your identity anytime you request a change in your account.

Try blooom

Blooom is a robo investing service that can manage an employer plan no matter where it’s held. Sign up for the service yourself and use it for your plan, and there is no requirement for your employer to participate.

 

 

How to Sign Up with blooom

To sign up for blooom, you need to begin by answering some basic questions to get the process rolling.

Quick and simple signup.

You will then provide your email address and create a password, and go from there.

The next step will be to log into your existing retirement plan account, and provide access to the account by blooom. The entire sign up process can be completed in just a few minutes.

Blooom then analyzes your account and makes any necessary changes within 10 to 30 days.

Blooom Pricing

You can start blooom with a free analysis of your retirement plan. The analysis can be completed in as little as five minutes. It will provide the following services:

• Uncover hidden investment fees
• See what you’re invested in
• Give recommendations for stocks and bonds to help you achieve your retirement goals

For the premium version, you pay a fee of $10 per month. That includes management and monitoring of your account, including the following services:

• All the service offered under the free analysis
• Minimization of hidden fees
• Regularly adjust your portfolio to make sure it remains aligned with your goals
• Get expert financial help from blooom advisors, including questions beyond your retirement plan
• Suspicious activity alerts, to protect your account

When you sign up for the premium version, you can cancel at any time. You can also get a 10% discount by paying the fee annually ($108 vs. $120 per year).

Blooom charges just $7.50 per month for each additional retirement account managed, so you can use the service if you have retirement plans from previous employers as well as your current one.

blooom Pros and Cons

Try Blooom

bloom Alternative

Unfortunately blooom is virtually unique in what they do. The only service that comes close is Personal Capital. They’ll analyze your 401(k) plan, then make suggestions to better allocate the assets in the plan, and even to select lower cost alternatives. But unlike blooom, Personal Capital doesn’t actively manage your plan.

But Personal Capital does have a few advantages. First you can use the free version to review and make allocation recommendations. Then you can use some of the tools they offer, like the 401(k) Fee Analyzer that shows what you’re paying for the funds in your plan, and suggests alternatives. They also have a full suite of retirement planning tools to help you better manage your plan.

But once again, unlike blooom, Personal Capital doesn’t offer direct 401(k) plan management. That’s what makes blooom so attractive.

FAQs

Question: Once blooom decides on my investment allocation, can I make changes?

Answer: You can log into your account and change your risk profile, which will adjust your asset allocation accordingly. You can do this simply by clicking on the button that says “Risk Tolerance” under the “My Profile” dropdown. Changes in your investment allocation will be made upon the next portfolio rebalancing.

That said, since you are the owner of your employer sponsored retirement plan, you have full control of the plan. If you ever want to make a change in the plan, you could simply do so in the normal way that you would. That usually involves contacting the plan custodian, and providing investment instructions.

Question: My employer sponsored retirement plan is held with a major diversified investment brokerage that offers unlimited investments and superior customer support. Can I get the same investment advice from them that I’d get from blooom, but without having to pay the $10 per month fee?

Answer: There’s a huge difference between customer support and financial advice. Large brokerage firms often do have excellent customer support, but their advice is limited to technical matters. For example, while they may be able to give you information about a specific security, they can’t make recommendations as to which investments you buy or sell. Nor can they create and manage a portfolio allocation for you in any way. The role of customer support with large brokerage firms is strictly to facilitate the trading process, and not to provide specific financial advice.

Question: Is blooom an actual robo-advisor, or just an investment advisory that makes investment recommendations that I’ll actually have to carry out?

Answer: It’s a robo-advisor. Once you sign up for the service, blooom will handle all the investment management issues concerning your retirement plan. Your job will be only to continue funding your plan, while blooom handles all the management details.

Question: Why doesn’t blooom manage other accounts, particularly IRAs?

Answer: The company has decided to focus on providing management for employer sponsored retirement plans, since it’s an entirely overlooked corner of the investment universe. But they do hint that IRA management may be coming in the future.

Question: I have a 401(k) balance of $5,000, making the $120 annual fee 2.4%? Is that too high to justify using blooom.

Answer: From a strictly financial standpoint, a fee equal of 2.4% is too high. But you have to weigh that against professional management of your plan. If you have little or no investment management experience, the fee will be worth paying. This is especially true if you’re making regular contributions to the plan and increasing the balance quickly. After all, the whole point of a retirement plan is to grow it.

The best way to do that is through a combination of regular contributions and steady earnings on your investments. You’ll handle the contributions, while blooom will take care of the earnings part. It may be worth absorbing the relatively higher management fee early on to help you get to that point.

Should You Sign Up with Blooom?

A lot of employees are very good at the job they do. But they may have very little understanding on how to manage their employer sponsored retirement plan. After all, you can always use a robo-advisor to manage taxable accounts or IRAs. But there’s no other similar management capability available for what is–or will eventually become–the largest single financial asset you’re likely to have.

This is the role that’s filled by blooom, and they do it at a very reasonable fee structure. While it’s true the fee is high on smaller accounts, at least on a percentage basis, it may be the best way to turn a small account into a large one. And once your account grows to at least $24,000, blooom’s fee structure becomes very competitive with other robo-advisors, at 0.50% or less.

In fact, it becomes very cost effective on large retirement plans. For example, if you have $100,000 in your retirement plan, the $120 annual fee will represent just 0.12%, which is well below the fee charged by the vast majority of robo-advisors.

If you’re concerned with a lackluster performance in your employer sponsored retirement plan, you feel that you’re paying too much in fees, or you lack sufficient knowledge to manage the plan on your own, blooom is an excellent service to remedy all those complications.

If you’d like more information, or if you’d like to sign up for the service, visit the blooom website.

The post Blooom Review – Finally, a Robo-Advisor for Your 401(k) appeared first on The Dough Roller.