TessMore Finance Blog

In today’s hot real estate market, there’s a temptation to do anything necessary to get the house your family wants. But one thing you don’t want to do is let the home inspection cost prevent you from having it done, even if the seller suggests it. Jennifer Meadows and her family looked at 37 houses in the Richmond, Virginia, area and put in bids on five, losing four of them to buyers who were willing to sweeten their offers. Several sellers asked Meadows to waive the home inspection. She declined. “It looked like (the house) was in great condition but we didn’t know,” Meadows said. “And it’s those unknowns that can get very pricey, and we weren’t willing to risk our financial well-being by skipping inspection.” The cost of a home inspection is small compared to the unexpected expenses that could come up later. When the Home Inspection Cost is Really Worth It That skepticism was wise, said home inspector John Wanninger. He and his INSPECTIX team in Nebraska have inspected more t

Think about all of the exciting moments ahead of you – creating memories, establishing lifelong friendships, and introducing a new realm of learning. In the whirlwind of it all, it’s very easy to lose sight of some vital components. Managing finances in this time period is critical. The more you have in place now will save you from a world of heartache in your later adult years. Keep reading to find out some effective, yet simple ways to make your money work for you while you’re in college. Spend your loan refund wisely If you have to utilize any type of private or federal funding, please understand one thing: the excess money that is dispersed to you each semester is not “free” money. This is simply an overpayment back to you once all of your school expenses are paid in full. If you have to use this money for any personal reasons, be sure to stick to an allotment to avoid spending more funds than needed. To avoid any temptation, feel free to either send the remaining funds to a pa

Think about all of the exciting moments ahead of you – creating memories, establishing lifelong friendships, and introducing a new realm of learning. In the whirlwind of it all, it’s very easy to lose sight of some vital components. Managing finances in this time period is critical. The more you have in place now will save you from a world of heartache in your later adult years. Keep reading to find out some effective, yet simple ways to make your money work for you while you’re in college. Spend your loan refund wisely If you have to utilize any type of private or federal funding, please understand one thing: the excess money that is dispersed to you each semester is not “free” money. This is simply an overpayment back to you once all of your school expenses are paid in full. If you have to use this money for any personal reasons, be sure to stick to an allotment to avoid spending more funds than needed. To avoid any temptation, feel free to either send the remaining funds to a pare

This market is tricky and when you’re looking to  make money  from it, it becomes important to analyze all the best-performing stocks and compare your portfolio to the current S&P 500 to make an informed decision. Bonus: Ready to ditch debt, save money, and build real wealth? Download our FREE Ultimate Guide to Personal Finance. How To Measure Stock Performance One of the best ways would be to measure stock performance by calculating its year-on-year growth. Simply take a stock’s price at the start of the year and see how much it changed in 12 months. For example, Tesla’s stock was $744.40 at the start of 2021 and $715.40 at the end of August 2021. A year is a long enough time for a stock to rise and fall, and it’s also easy to compare yearly returns. It’s also important to have perspective while measuring stock returns, so you must go a step further and look at the top 1,000 stocks by returns in large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap. Companies of different sizes tend to grow a

You can make money with nothing but your phone. Below, I’ve listed best advice for how to make money on your phone. To be clear, you’re not likely to get rich (at least not quickly) with these methods. We did put together the options  that have the most potential, even if they take some extra work. That’s why we skipped common options like survey apps. They do make money on your phone but the hourly rate won’t be nearly as good as the list below. How to Make Money on Your Phone: 13 Easy Ways Let’s get started. Investment Apps The investment apps are ridiculously good these days. You can get: Automatic savings without having to give anything up Free investment trades Automatic investing for your entire portfolio By getting a few of the right apps in place, you can set up an entire investment system that takes care of your future. Check them out: Acorns : Allows you to invest as little as $1 per month. The app rounds up purchases to the next dollar and invests the differenc

Investing is the single most crucial thing you can do to ensure your financial future — and the sooner you start, the easier it is to get rich. There is more than 100 years of evidence in the stock market that suggests this. Stocks and bonds are a great place to start, so we’re going to dig into that in this post. But first, let’s talk about the typical perceptions of investing. People still don’t understand what investing is exactly. Folks seem to think there is some magical way to make a fortune with stocks and bonds. From what I’ve seen, the two things people get most wrong about investing are thinking: It’s a 24-hour Wolf-of-Wall-Street—style party where traders make millions of dollars daily while screaming “SELL! SELL!!” into a phone. Investments are incredibly risky because all the pundits scream “financial crisis!” at even the slightest dips in the markets. And, frankly, you have every reason to believe this. Thanks to Hollywood and the (annoying) talking heads on ca