You can spoil your furry friends without breaking the bank — here’s how. SeventyFour / Shutterstock.com
Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared on The Penny Hoarder. Pets are beloved members of many families, and it’s natural to want to spoil them. But food and toys can be expensive. Fortunately, there are loads of freebies available for your furry friends. In this article, we’ll explore some of the top freebies for cats and dogs that you can snatch with only a few simple steps.
The SBA is simplifying its loan requirements, which could make it easier for your business to access credit. Find out what the changes could mean for your company.
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As a small business, it can be hard to access the credit you need. That’s even more the case in the current risk-averse economic climate. So much so that a survey earlier this year showed that over three-quarters of small business owners worried about accessing credit. This is why it’s great news that the Small Business Association (SBA) has introduced sweeping changes that could make it easier for business owners to borrow money.
One of the attractions of SBA loans is that they often have favorable terms, including lower rates, fees, and down payments. However, they can also involve considerable amounts of paperwork and have a long closing period. As a result, the SBA is overhauling its rules in what some insiders have called the biggest change in 40 years.
There are several different types of SBA loans, but the most common are the 504 and 7(a). The 7(a) loans are designed to provide working capital and can be used to refinance debt, buy furniture, or even real estate. The longer-term 504 loans are aimed at things like buying or constructing buildings, or purchasing machinery and equipment.
Here are three of the biggest ways the loans are changing.
The SBA wants to cut the amount of red tape involved in loan applications. For starters, it won’t take as many factors into account when deciding whether to approve a loan. It used to look at nine different criteria, including subjective items like the strength of the business and potential for success.
Now it will consider just three:
Business credit reportBusiness cash flowCollateral or equity
It is also changing the collateral requirements — another factor that stops some business owners from accessing credit. For example, it has upped the amount people can borrow on a 7(a) without putting down collateral from $25,000 to $50,000. You’ll still need to give a personal guarantee, but that’s not the same as, say, having to put your home up as collateral.
The SBA does not issue loans itself, but it works with a number of lenders who do. For the past 40 years, there’s been a cap on the number of Small Business Lending Company (SBLC) licenses issued. The license is what lets non-bank lenders issue government-backed loans, reducing the risk and making it easier for businesses to access capital.
Another big change is to increase the number of licenses, scrapping the limit of 14 completely. For now, it will license just three new SBLCs. According to a discussion document, the SBA estimates, “The three new SBLCs have the potential to increase 7(a) lending by approximately 425 loans per year over the next four years.”
Many reports show that it’s harder for minority-owned businesses to borrow money, including analysis from the Federal Reserve. Indeed, according to the 2022 Small Business Credit Survey, “Applicant firms owned by people of color were half as likely as white-owned applicant firms to report that they received all the traditional financing they sought.”
The SBA believes its changes will make it easier for underserved communities to access credit. It will change the approval criteria for SBA loans and give more flexibility for loans under $150,000. It is also simplifying and clarifying the qualification requirements to make it easier for businesses to know if they qualify.
Another change is making the pilot Community Advantage Program permanent. The program aims to help both low-income borrowers and those in underserved communities get the capital they need. According to an SBA press release, “The Community Advantage Pilot Program has demonstrated success with higher rates of lending to Black, Hispanic, women, and veteran-owned businesses.”
Businesses have various ways to access credit, including business credit cards, non-SBA loans, and business lines of credit. It’s important to find the right small business loan for your situation. One thing that hasn’t changed is that SBA loans are only available when you’ve exhausted other options, so you’ll need to contact other lenders first.
All the same, if you’ve been considering taking out a business loan — or have previously struggled to get credit, now may be a good time to familiarize yourself with the new SBA loan requirements. To be clear, you will still need to jump through a number of hoops, but the process may be a lot easier than it was. That said, easier does not mean easy, so give yourself plenty of time and ask for support if you need it.
Some experts have criticized the SBA loan changes because they think more people will default on their loans if the lending criteria are relaxed. Time will tell whether this is accurate, but what matters is making sure that your business is able to repay the debt. Think carefully about how much you need to borrow and how you will pay it back. Make cash flow forecasts for best and worst-case scenarios, and try to build in contingencies.
Importantly, understand what risk you are taking on and what will happen if you fall behind with your payments. It’s one thing to take advantage of the streamlined lending process. It’s quite another to find you’ve borrowed more than you can afford to repay. Defaulting on a loan can have serious consequences, no matter where the money came from.
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Having a hard time putting away the credit cards? Here are 10 signs that you may be addicted to the magic plastic. Kues / Shutterstock.com
For some, a credit card is just another wallet-burning mechanism, similar to cash, that must be used to satisfy some personal need or desire. But what happens when the magic plastic is no longer available? Could you move on with everyday life without any interruptions? Or would your world suddenly come crashing down right before your eyes? Following are several distinct ways to determine if you…
“Girl math” is a trend that needs to go away. Read on to see why.
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When Mattel released a talking Barbie doll in the early 1990s who was programmed to utter the phrase “math class is tough,” there was a huge uproar — so much so that Mattel opted to reprogram Barbie to avoid commenting on the matter.
While it was never expressly stated that Barbie dolls are meant solely for female consumers, the reality is that little girls have always been Barbie’s target audience. And consumers didn’t like the implication that girls were likely to struggle with math.
But now, there’s a new association between women and math that’s far from favorable. It’s a trend known as “girl math,” and it’s taken TikTok by storm.
“Girl math” refers to justifying the cost of a given item by breaking its price down on a per-use basis. There are variations on that theme, but that’s the gist of it.
In a nutshell, “girl math” might tell you that if a handbag costs $365 but you plan to use it every day for a year, you’re only paying $1 per day. That lower cost might make that otherwise large outlay more palatable for some consumers.
Not only can “girl math” easily be construed as offensive, but there are some major flaws with the logic. Here are a few reasons why “girl math” is nothing more than a spending trap.
You may be inclined to use “girl math” as justification to buy something on the pricier side. Let’s say you need a new coat. That’s a reasonable expense. And if you find a coat that costs $360 and you expect to use it for 120 days out of the year, you’re only paying $3 per day to stay warm. That’s not such an outrageous amount.
But while $3 a day may not be such a large number to wrap your head around — after all, it may be comparable to the cost of your daily store-bought coffee — that doesn’t mean there’s not a less expensive coat you can buy that will only cost you $1.50 a day. And if money is tight, you’re better off buying the coat that costs less.
Perhaps you’re buying a piece of jewelry for $300. If you intend to wear it every day for the next three years, you’re spending just $0.27 a day. That’s a negligible amount.
But just because your per-use cost is minimal for a given item doesn’t mean you can afford that item. It may be that buying that jewelry results in a $300 credit card balance you’re forced to carry forward and accrue interest on. That’s not a good situation to land in.
You might be window shopping when you spot the most beautiful pair of boots you’ve ever seen. Those boots might come close to costing what your monthly mortgage payment does. But you might justify that purchase by saying that if you wear them numerous times a year over the next decade, your cost per wear will be fairly small.
But affordability issues aside, the problem here is that you’re making certain assumptions about your usage. You’re assuming fashion won’t change, your feet won’t grow (if you’ve ever been pregnant, you know full well this is possible even in adulthood), or that the boots will be comfortable enough to get great use out of them. None of these things are guaranteed.
At the end of the day, the problem with “girl math” is that it has the potential to encourage people to make purchases they shouldn’t, either because they can’t afford them or they won’t really get good value for their money. To put it another way, “girl math” is a means of dismissing guilt over buying things. But sometimes, guilty feelings pop up when you’re making a purchase for good reasons.
If you see something you want to splurge on and you have savings and no debt, go for it. But don’t use “girl math” to justify your purchase. Instead, tell yourself, “I like this, I can afford it, and I’m choosing to spend my money on this over something else.” It’s that simple.
And if you can’t afford a given item that catches your eye, save up for it. That way, you can move forward without guilt — and without having to run calculations that break down the cost of owning that item by the minute.
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We’re firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers.
The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Maurie Backman has positions in Target. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Target. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The average and median levels of retirement income vary widely. Here’s a look at the data.
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There are all kinds of ways to fund your retirement. Some folks have retirement accounts, others have investment portfolios. Still others — a distressing number, as it turns out — are living almost entirely off the Social Security payments they get each month.
Regardless of where it comes from, it’s absolutely vital to have a reliable income during retirement. But how much is enough?
The actual figure you need to earn in retirement will depend entirely on your specific needs (and wants). That said, many folks like to see how they stack up against other people in their peer groups. So, here’s a look at some of the data on retirement income from the 2022 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC).
The most common way folks look at numerical data is the average. According to the CPS ASEC data, the average income for retired households in the U.S. is $75,254.
Before you worry that you’re way behind the curve, it’s important to remember exactly what the “average” means. If you took the total amount of income for everyone who is retired, and divided that huge number by the total number of retired people, you get the average income per retired person.
Now, if you have a small number of retired people making a huge amount of money, that can make the average much higher. This can inflate the numbers enough that it’s not necessarily a good measure of the real situation. For that, you need the median.
As you might guess from the name, the median income is the one in the middle. Think of it this way: If you made one long list of the incomes of every retired person in the U.S., in numerical order, the median income would be the number exactly halfway down the list.
Why is this better than looking at the average? Because it’s far more accurate. Half of retired people make more than the median, and half of them make less than the median. (With averages, you could have a small number of people making more than the average, and a large number of people making less.)
The median income for retired households in the U.S. is $47,620. So, if you’re making somewhere around that amount, you’re in the middle of the pack.
If you’re not yet retired, then there’s something very important to understand about these numbers: They look at far more than Social Security income. The average Social Security payment is just $1,827 per month in 2023 — that’s less than $22,000 a year.
So, for the folks around the median income level, Social Security makes up less than half of their retirement income. The rest will be things like pensions, retirement accounts, and other investments.
Given the constant peril that the Social Security fund finds itself in, expecting Social Security to make up even half your income in retirement is asking for trouble. And trying to live entirely on Social Security is a serious challenge, especially as prices keep going up. So, if you’re not already retired, my advice is to start — or keep — saving.
The most common way people supplement their Social Security in retirement is with a retirement fund, such as an IRA or 401(k) account. While investment accounts can carry some risk — investing in the stock market never guarantees a return — long-term investing tends to result in a net positive gain.
If stocks aren’t of interest (or you’re looking to diversify after maxing out your retirement accounts), consider other types of investments. Some popular avenues include investing in real estate and investing in small businesses.
A handful of folks may still be in careers eligible for pensions (typically government jobs). If that’s you, make sure you look into how to qualify for a pension and complete any necessary enrollment steps.
Although it’s human nature to compare ourselves to others, be sure you’re not judging yourself too harshly based on faceless numbers like those in this article. At the end of the day, if your retirement income is enough to give you a comfortable life, that’s all that matters.
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If you have an extra $5,000 in your checking account, you probably aren’t earning interest. Find out where to move your savings and how much you can earn.
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Many people keep some extra cash in their bank account for extra security. Even if you budget well, unexpected bills can pop up, so having extra money in your account is a solid strategy to avoid overdrafting your account. But you shouldn’t keep all your money there.
For most people, their checking accounts don’t earn interest. That’s why keeping any savings in a savings account is best so you earn interest. Any extra money made through interest can be a win for your personal finances.
Do you have an extra $5,000 stashed in your checking account? I’ll explain why you may want to transfer that money to a high-yield savings account.
Most checking accounts don’t offer rewards or interest, so there is little incentive to keep your savings there. But if you transfer your emergency fund savings into a bank account that earns interest, your money will grow over time without doing any work.
When researching savings accounts, review the annual percentage yields (APYs). Banks use APY to describe the returns customers can expect by keeping their money in a savings account for one year. Rates can vary significantly, so comparing the rates is essential.
So, how much interest are you missing out on by stashing an extra $5,000 in your checking account? It’s likely more than you realize. In the below table, I’ll show you how much money you could earn by moving your $5,000 savings to a high-yield savings account for one year.
To calculate how much interest you’ll earn, multiply your deposit ($5,000) by the APY your bank offers. This will show you how much money you’ll earn in interest if you keep the money in your savings account for one year.
I used a 4.65% APY for a high-yield savings account for the following calculations. The bank accounts on our best high-yield savings accounts list have APYs ranging from 4.25% to 5.25%.
Earning $232.50 in interest in one year is a big deal. But you can earn even more than that long term. The longer you keep your savings in the bank, the more you can make, thanks to compound interest — or interest you earn on interest.
To illustrate how compound interest works, I’ll outline how much money you can make by keeping your initial $5,000 deposit in a high-yield savings account for anywhere from one to three years.
The below calculations assume you make no additional contributions beyond the initial deposit. But you can boost your earnings if you continue to put more money into your account. Automating the savings process can save you time as you save regularly.
Here’s a breakdown of the potential earnings:
That’s an extra $730.44 earned in three years, assuming the APY on your account doesn’t change. You should be aware that APYs can change over time, so your APY will likely fluctuate. As you can see, it pays to keep your extra savings in an interest-earning bank account.
IIf you have been saving for emergencies or planned future expenses, don’t miss out on interest. Open a high-yield savings account and stash your savings there to boost your bank account balance as you earn interest. This one simple move can be a win for your finances.
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