Money Management

Target is a great place to shop. Read on to learn which housewares to scope out the next time you’re in a store or browsing online. 

My love of Target can be a problem for my checking account. Consequently, my trips to the store are few and far between (shopping there online is my usual move), and when I do go, I steel myself for a higher tab. It’s the housewares section where I go weak in the knees — what can I say, I love inexpensive home furnishings. Here’s some of the best Target has to offer. (Be aware, online and in-store prices may differ, and items do go on/off sale all the time.)

1. Decorative pillows

Sure, you could just buy boring basic bed pillows and skip decorative ones, but where’s the fun in that? Target has an excellent selection of throw pillows of all kinds. If you’ve got kids and want to dress up their space, Target’s line of kids’ home furnishings (called Pillowfort) has extremely cute offerings, including this throw pillow covered with pink fuzzy tassels — and it’ll only cost you $15!

There’s something wonderful about hanging out on your bed to read or watch TV, or just do a little work on your laptop. For that, this sherpa bed rest pillow has you covered. It comes in four colors and is on sale for $16 at the time of this writing.

2. Bedsheets

I’m kind of a sheet snob, in that I refuse to buy anything that isn’t 100% cotton — polyester and other synthetics simply don’t wash as nicely, and tend to pill over time. So I recommend Threshold (Target’s in-house brand) for bedsheets. The Performance line is 400 thread count and has a nice silky feel. Check out these Ditsy Floral printed sheets — the queen size will run you just $44 at time of writing. Going back to a kid’s room, you can pick up a set of solid-colored Pillowfort sheets for just $20 in a twin size.

3. Candles

Summer isn’t exactly the prime season for lighting candles in a cozy living room, but it never hurts to stock up ahead of fall and winter. If you like candles and have never tried one with wooden wicks, you’re missing out. They crackle as they burn, and it’s like having a tiny campfire on your coffee table. You can scoop up a 14-ounce wood wick candle that smells like citrus for just $17, and enjoy 29 hours of burning time.

If you prefer having lots of little candles to dress up your space, scope out this set of three candles in a handy gift set for just $10. They come in citrus and floral scents and the cute designs will brighten any room.

4. Coffee mugs

For a household of one, I have entirely too many coffee mugs as it is, but I still can’t keep myself from browsing Target’s ceramic offerings. I am very tempted by these lovely stoneware mugs with soft ombre colors. They come in six colors and are just $10 a piece. If you prefer a little encouragement with your morning brew, may I suggest this floral-print mug that tells you you’re doing great? It holds 15 ounces of liquid and can be yours for just $7.

5. Blankets

By this point, you’re probably starting to understand why Target can be dangerous for me. But just to drive it home, let’s look at Target’s blanket selection. You need a new quilt to go with new sheets, so have a look at this velvet quilt by Threshold. I love the light teal blue color, but it comes in multiple color and size options. You can get the queen size for $55.20 at time of writing, and it’s even machine washable.

If quilts aren’t your speed, Target offers a nice selection of other blankets. This microplush bed blanket is a favorite of mine, I’ve owned the pine green one for years. This blanket runs just $24 for the full/queen size at time of writing, and it comes in multiple colors to match any bedroom.

If your home furnishings are looking a little sad and dated, head to your closest Target store (or shop online from anywhere) to see what it has to offer. You can’t go wrong with the above offers — or the smaller credit card tab you’ll walk out with as a result.

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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.The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Target. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Selling your home yourself can save you money but there’s a lot more effort involved. Here’s why it isn’t the right choice for everyone. 

Over the past decade or so, I’ve sold several homes. Each time I have looked for someone to buy a property I own, I have done the process myself. I do not hire real estate agents to help me with the selling process.

By not hiring a real estate agent, I’m able to save on commission. The cost of a seller’s agent is usually around 3%, which can add up to a lot of money. I still have to pay the buyer’s agent but I save thousands by selling on my own — and that’s all extra money I can keep in my checking account.

Despite the savings, though, I know that selling by owner is not the right choice for everyone. Here are a few key reasons why that’s the case.

There’s a lot more work involved in selling a house yourself

When you hire a real estate agent, they take care of a lot of home-selling tasks for you. They’ll usually have professional photographs taken of the house, write up a listing description, put your property onto the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), and handle the process of showing your property.

A real estate agent is also going to give you advice on pricing, deal with buyer questions, receive offers, help you find a title company, and do a long list of other tasks — all of which you will have to do yourself if you don’t have an agent working for you.

It takes a lot of time to do everything on your own, especially if you haven’t done the process before and must figure out how.

You could make mistakes that end up costing you

When you sell your house, you obviously want to make a big enough profit to pay off your mortgage and hopefully walk away with some extra money in your pocket. But if you’re selling it yourself, you could make mistakes that reduce the amount of money you are offered.

You could, for example, price the house improperly or not do the staging and prep work necessary to get a good offer, or you might not realize what you should look for when an offer comes in.

I’ve sold a lot of properties and I also have a law degree, so I feel reasonably confident I’m not likely to make a lot of errors during the listing and sales process. But, for those without tons of experience or industry knowledge, there’s a lot of potential for things to go wrong.

You’ll need to deal with negotiating all on your own

Most of the time, a buyer won’t just offer you the exact amount you are asking for under the exact terms you want. Usually, you’ll get an offer (or more than one offer) and there will be some back-and-forth negotiating.

If you have a real estate agent, your agent can negotiate on your behalf. Your agent can provide suggestions about how to respond to an offer, can help you come up with a counteroffer, and can represent your interests during the negotiating process.

You have to be ready to review the paperwork

Finally, there is a lot of paperwork involved in a home sale, including the offer contract as well as seller disclosures and documents you must provide to the title company. An agent is familiar with all of these documents and can read them over and help ensure there’s nothing within them that could adversely affect your interests.

If you don’t have a professional representing you, it will be up to you to read the fine print and make sure the terms of the deal are fair.

While there are clearly a lot of downsides to selling yourself, you do have to remember that you can save a lot of money. So, ultimately, you’ll have to think about how comfortable you are working without help and whether you’re confident you can avoid errors during the selling process and ensuring all is in order for the buyer’s new mortgage loan. This will help you decide if FSBO is right for you.

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Congratulations on finishing college. Read on for the money moves you don’t want to make. 

If you have just graduated from college, you have the opportunity to get off on the right foot financially — or the wrong one. When you are getting your financial life started, avoiding a few simple money mistakes could make all the difference in how big your savings account balance ends up being and how easy it is for you to build wealth.

To make sure you get on the right track from the start, be sure to avoid these big money mistakes.

1. Committing to large fixed expenses

When you graduate from college and start building your new life with your degree, you’ll want to make sure you don’t make too many commitments to pay big expenses.

If you obligate yourself to use a good portion of your income every month for things like rent and a car payment, you’re going to be stuck with these large expenditures for months or years to come — and they’ll interfere with your ability to do other things. If your income goes down, you could also struggle to keep up with these big payments and you may not easily be able to change them.

To avoid this, aim to keep your large fixed expenses to 50% or less of your income. And if you can keep fixed costs even lower, you’ll have a lot of extra money to help set yourself up for more financial security later on.

2. Taking on high-interest debt

Charging a big balance on your credit cards that you can’t pay back, or taking on any other high-interest debt, is definitely something to avoid once you’ve graduated.

While you may be tempted to go into debt to get yourself set up as a new grad — perhaps to do things like buy furniture for your new apartment or take an amazing trip to celebrate earning your degree — try to avoid the temptation to make any major purchases until you can afford to pay for them with cash.

When you go into debt, you make all your purchases costlier by tacking on interest charges. Worse, you steal from your future self by committing income you have not even made yet to covering costs you’re incurring today.

Unless you are borrowing for something that stands a good chance of improving your net worth — like taking out a loan to start a small business — try to avoid financing purchases right after you’ve graduated from college. Hopefully your post-degree earnings will be enough to help you cover the basics and even some luxury purchases over time without you having to commit to a creditor.

3. Waiting to start investing

Finally, not investing right away could be a huge mistake, as you would give up the benefit of having time on your side to maximize the compound interest you can earn.

The sooner you open an account with a brokerage firm and begin investing, the more you’ll be able to benefit from compound growth (which is what happens when you earn returns that are reinvested and that start to earn returns on their own).

If you start investing at 21 and want to be a millionaire by 65, the monthly amount you would need to contribute to make that happen is just $127 assuming a 10% average annual return. If you wait a decade until age 31, though, the amount to invest each month to end up with the same $1 million increases to $339.47. That’s more than double the amount.

The good news is, you can avoid all of these mistakes. You just need to make the commitment to invest, avoid borrowing, and keep fixed costs low. You have a unique opportunity to do those things since you haven’t established your money habits too deeply yet — so give them a try.

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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.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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My husband and I bought a house together prior to getting married. Here’s how having a joint bank account helped with the process. 

Before my husband and I got married, we actually had both a joint checking account and a joint savings account in our names. While it may seem odd to make this decision and combine finances in this way before we were committed for life, there are a few key reasons why this made sense for us.

We were working toward shared goals

The biggest reason that we opened a shared account was because we wanted to work toward joint goals. Specifically, we were hoping to buy a home and needed to save up a down payment to get a mortgage loan.

It was easier for us to both take part in contributing to the purchase of the home if we had a shared account we could deposit money into. That way, we could track our progress and monitor our combined efforts to accomplish our goal.

We had a shared home

My husband and I actually moved into our shared home before getting married since we wanted our wedding to be at the house we bought. Since we bought a house together prior to tying the knot, we also had shared expenses related to the house that we had to cover — like property taxes, insurance, home maintenance, utility bills, and of course our regular monthly mortgage payments.

We wanted an easy way to share the costs of these expenses, and using a joint account enabled us to do that. We could both put money into it and then either one of us could write checks out of it when it came time to pay the bills.

If we needed stuff for the house, like furniture, we were also able to purchase it together out of our shared account rather than having to decide who would pay for it or how we would split the money for the specific purchase.

We wanted to see if we could manage money together successfully

Finally, the last big motivation — and perhaps the most important reason of all — was that we wanted to see how we would manage money together in practice.

Financial conflicts contribute to around 20% to 40% of all divorces. We absolutely did not want to get married, only to find out that there was no way we could be happy sharing our financial lives. And, the best way for us to figure that out was to see how we actually did in the real world with having a joint account.

While it might have been a little bit of a hassle to untangle our shared finances after opening the account, it would have been a much bigger problem to get married, find out we couldn’t handle each other’s financial habits, and have to divorce. So we figured we’d give it a try and see how we did.

Fortunately, everything worked out. We found out we are mostly on the same page about money and we still have that joint bank account opened over a decade later, so it turned out in the end that we made the right choice.

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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.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Travel credit cards offer rewards and all kinds of other perks. Learn about the must-have features you should look for to find the right travel card. 

If you love to travel, then a travel credit card is good to have in your wallet. This type of credit card allows you to pay for travel expenses in points or miles, so they’re an easy way to save money. Many of the top travel rewards cards also have lots of other features, too.

Often, the most challenging part is finding the right card. If you choose wrong, you could end up with a card that doesn’t have everything you need. To avoid that, make sure any travel credit card you’re considering has all the following features.

1. Travel rewards you can actually use

The way you can use travel rewards depends on your credit card. For that reason, it’s important to only get a card with rewards you’re sure you can use. Ideally, you should be able to redeem your rewards every time you travel.

So, only get an airline credit card if you fly on that airline regularly. Only get a hotel credit card with a hotel brand that you like. And always check how a credit card’s rewards work, and how you can use them, before you apply for it.

2. A big welcome offer

Travel credit cards tend to have some of the largest welcome offers. These give you the opportunity to earn a lot of points, very quickly. Some of them can be worth $500 or more in free travel.

Since welcome offers can be so valuable, it makes sense to look for a travel card with a good one. Don’t forget to confirm that you’ll be able to complete the requirements to earn the welcome offer. It’s usually just a spending requirement, such as making $3,000 in purchases in the first three months.

3. No foreign transaction fee

Some credit cards charge foreign transaction fees, with 3% being a standard fee amount. If you go abroad and spend $3,000, this would cost you another $90.

Foreign transaction fees are one of those extra costs that nobody needs to pay. Many travel cards don’t charge this type of fee, so it’s easy enough to avoid. To be safe, double check the fees for any card you’re considering, because there are travel cards that charge one.

4. A high rewards rate on your typical expenses

The more points you earn on your regular spending, the more you can save on travel. To maximize your rewards, look for a card with a rewards rate that’s a good fit for your usual spending habits.

If you go out to eat often, look for bonus rewards on dining purchases. If you spend a lot on groceries, pick a card with bonuses at supermarkets or on grocery delivery services. And if you feel like your spending is pretty balanced, consider going with a card that has a competitive rate, such as 2 points per $1, on all types of purchases.

5. A reasonable annual fee for what it offers

There are travel cards at just about every price point, from $0 per year to nearly $700. The key to deciding if an annual fee is worth it is comparing the cost to the value you’ll get from the card. More expensive cards typically have more valuable perks, such as:

Travel spending creditsHigher rewards ratesBigger welcome offersAirport lounge access

For example, at first glance, a $250 annual fee probably seems like a lot to pay for a credit card. But if you like the benefits and estimate that it will save you at least $750 per year, then you’re coming out $500 ahead.

You have all kinds of options if you’re in the market for a travel credit card. If you look for one with those five features, you should have no trouble finding a card you like and that helps you save money on your travels.

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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.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Investing from a young age is important. Read on for tips to get your teen started. 

It often takes adults many years to get on the board with the idea of investing their money. So if you have a high-school teen who’s yet to start investing, they’re probably in good company.

But the sooner your child begins to invest, the more wealth they have an opportunity to build. So with that in mind, here are a few steps you can take to help your high schooler kick off their investing career.

1. Encourage them to get a job

You don’t need a lot of money to start investing, but you do need some. So unless you want to be the one handing over that cash, encourage your teen to go out and get a job. It can be something very part time, like tutoring a fellow student once a week. Or if your high schooler can handle a steady gig, like weekend hours at a local shop, even better.

2. Open a brokerage account for them

You generally need to be 18 years of age to open your own brokerage account. But you can open up a custodial account on your child’s behalf where they can invest their money. In this case, the assets belong to your child, not you. And that’s a good thing, because if your child’s investments make money, you won’t be liable for capital gains taxes — your child will. And your child most likely has a lower tax rate than you do.

3. Show them how to choose stocks

You don’t want your child picking stocks at random for their portfolio. So you may need to be prepared to show them the ropes. Encourage your child to look at different companies’ financials when making their choice. And also, help them navigate their options by explaining the importance of diversification.

Now to be fair, when your child is first starting out, they may only be buying one or two stocks. So it’s not so terrible if their portfolio isn’t all that diverse from the very start. Remember, you want to make the process of investing fun for your teen so they’re motivated to keep doing it. So if they decide to buy shares of McDonald’s and Chipotle stock because those are your teen’s two favorite food places, so be it.

Of course, this raises the question: What if you don’t really know anything about investing, and you therefore don’t have much advice to give to your teen? In that case, a good bet may be to encourage your teen to choose some individual stocks, but also, buy shares of some S&P 500 ETFs so they’re effectively investing in the broad market.

Get started early

Many high schoolers are more focused on social media and after-school plans than investing. But if you get your teen started at a young age, they might manage to grow a lot of wealth over time.

Over the past 50 years, the stock market’s average annual return, as measured by the S&P 500, is 10% before inflation. If your child invests $2,000 at age 17 and their portfolio enjoys that same return, in 50 years, that $2,000 will be worth about $235,000. So if your teen isn’t too thrilled about getting a job and then investing their money rather than spending it, you may want to put that sacrifice in perspective by showing them how much wealth they stand to gain over time if they start young.

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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.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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