TessMore Finance Blog

There may be no better time than now to be a teenager looking for a job. Many businesses are scrambling to find workers to fill spots that were held by adults, pre-pandemic. Those adults haven’t returned to the workforce yet, or at least they aren’t going back to their old jobs. It’s retail and hospitality industries that are hurting the most and teens are coming to the rescue. To lure prospective employees, some businesses are paying higher hourly wages and offering signing bonuses. Where once high schools students were aced out of some retail and fast food jobs by college kids and even older adults, they are now coming to the rescue of businesses desperate to fill openings. We’ve got some ideas about how teens can save those bigger paychecks for college and cars or even a gap year. Statistics show they are responding to the calls of industry. The unemployment rate for teens ages 16 to 19 has been below 10% for May through July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In f...

Freelance writing can be a tough nut to crack, but once you do, it can be fruitful, and something you might love. Have you ever had that awkward feeling of not belonging somewhere and all you want to do is leave? Maybe it was the first time you went to hang out with your significant other’s friends and felt out of place, or maybe it was that extra 30 seconds spent in silence with a stranger in the elevator. This is how I started to feel about my full-time job last year. Though I’m grateful to have a stable job and to earn enough to meet my needs, I still feel like I don’t belong, and I lack passion for what I do. For a while now, I’ve been having a love affair with freelance writing, and it’s fueling my desire to work again. I initially started picking up clients to earn some extra side-hustle money to put toward my debt. As my side gigs grew, I started to think: “Hey, maybe I could do this full time to support myself.” Who would have thought that writing would become a necess...

Getting rid of federal student loan debt has just become easier — in many cases automatic — for borrowers with qualifying disabilities.  The U.S. Department of Education announced that it will automatically forgive federal student loans for at least 323,000 borrowers who have total and permanent disabilities. An estimated $5.8 billion in federal student loan debt will be wiped out through this initiative. “We are excited to see the Department of Education finally provide automatic discharges to the hundreds of thousands of disabled borrowers who have been entitled to this relief for years,” Persis Yu, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, said in a statement. The Department stated it plans to identify all eligible borrowers in September, notify them shortly afterward and then discharge the loans “by the end of the year.” While this initiative will be a big relief to the borrowers who qualify, there are many more who will conti...

I grew up using computers. When I was 6 years old, I was introduced to “Prince of Persia” on the iMac, which sparked a lifelong video game hobby. I never looked back. Over the years, I’ve accrued tons of outdated video games and consoles, which I let go to waste at first. They sat there collecting dust until I got a nostalgic second wind and turned them on. That reminiscent spurt would last about 20 minutes before I would get bored and place the games neatly back into the rectangular, dustless outline on the shelf where they would hibernate until I got nostalgic again. But that was before I discovered a few strategies to maximize my payout when I sell video games for cash (or gas and groceries). Using these trade-in tricks at GameStop can get you up to 48% extra cash for your video games. So if you need to fill up your gas tank by the end of the week or you need a boost to help you make rent, selling your video games (after you’ve finished them, of course) can be a great way to m...

Attending a major sporting event is at the same time thrilling and painful. The roar of the crowd is exhilarating as is watching your favorite players but that can be offset with finding a place to park, paying a fortune for a beer and hot dog, and scooting past a dozen people to get to your middle-of-the-aisle seat. Plus don’t forget how exhausted you are at work after driving home from a Monday night football game. None of those evils exist when you watch an NFL game from home. And if you know how to watch NFL games without cable, you even save money as you settle in for Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football or even Thursday Night Football. Live Football After Cable Without cable — which you ditched because of the cost — you need to decide how you are going to stream NFL games. First, figure out what’s more important to you, seeing all the live NFL games, making sure you can see every game of your favorite NFL team or just watching the highlights. Let’s look at the option...

Warren Buffett is notoriously a good investor. Sure, he’s made some mistakes along the way (who hasn’t?), but whatever move he makes, you can bet he’s thought it through, and it will pay off — big time. Which is why when Mr. Buffett made his biggest stock purchase of the year into Apple, we thought, “Isn’t it too late to do that?” Apple is already trading at the highest price it ever has. It feels out of reach for us non-billionaires. But it turns out, that’s not the case. While we don’t have the ability to own $111 billion (yes, billion with a B) in AAPL shares, we can still get our hands on some — and reap the rewards as the market goes up. One of our favorite ways to get into the stock market and be a part of infamous big-tech returns, without risking billions is through a free app called Stash . It lets you be a part of something that’s normally exclusive to the richest of the rich — on Stash you can buy pieces of other companies — including Buffett’s choices — for as little as...

If you’re a Lyft or Uber driver, you already know how important it is to track your mileage and expenses. You’ll need that information come tax time to make sure you’re squeezing out every last penny in deductions. But rideshare drivers aren’t the only people eligible for mileage tax deductions. If you drive your personal vehicle for other kinds of paid work or use it for charitable, moving or medical purposes, you may also qualify for a standard mileage rate deduction. Back in the old days, tracking mileage meant pulling a crumpled notebook out of the glove box and hoping your pen wasn’t out of ink. But now there’s an app for everything — including mileage tracking. Here are our favorites. 7 Mileage Tracker Apps We Love These apps will help you stay on top of all the business miles you travel, so you can reduce your tax liability when it’s time to pay Uncle Sam. And you can try out most of them for free! 1. Everlance Everlance is a versatile app that not only tracks your mil...

It’s a hot job market right now; there are more job openings than applicants. We are seeing things many of us would have never expected, such as fast-food businesses offering signing bonuses. That was always reserved for highly skilled workers who needed to be wooed away from competitors. Not anymore. There are opportunities for many employees to better themselves by switching organizations. There are risks and there are rewards in making such a transition. Laying out these factors and walking through them one by one can help you make an informed decision that you are less likely to regret later on. Compensation for Changing Jobs Money is always a factor. I doubt there has ever been a better time to shift employers for financial gain. Many employers cannot find the skilled people they need for positions — or even the unskilled people they need for entry-level positions. Starting salaries are rising rapidly in many locations. Wages, however, are not the whole picture. At least, not...