TessMore Finance Blog

When you look for advice on how to save money, a common refrain you find is to do things yourself. Instead of hiring someone to mow your lawn, shovel your sidewalk or fix your toilet, you should accomplish those tasks yourself. That advice may be fine for basic household tasks, but it can be tricky when it comes to more complicated tasks. Also, when you have limited time, is it worth doing something yourself even if you’ll save money? Read below to see when it’s worth to do-it-yourself and when you should just pay for it. Is It Always Cheaper to Do it Yourself? Whitney Hansen, host of the Money Nerds Podcast , buys furniture for cheap, refinishes it and resells it for a profit. As someone who’s tackled dozens of projects, she’s learned when it makes sense to do it yourself, and when you should leave it to the professionals. She said one of the biggest problems beginners run into is underestimating the time involved. This often leads them to take shortcuts that result in shoddy wo

Meal prep services have become increasingly more common over the past few years. During the COVID-19 pandemic when people limiting their trips out of the house, food delivery services increased drastically. In addition to straight food delivery like DoorDash or UberEats, services that delivered meal kits became more and more prevalent. While these meal prep services aren’t a great fit for everyone, they can make sense for certain budgets. What Is a Meal Prep Service? A meal prep service, also sometimes known as a meal kit, provides you with a certain number of meals per week. You select the number of meals and which meals you want, and they will be delivered to your door. The ingredients are measured out in exact serving sizes, usually to make one to four portions. It is common for meal kit services to offer a certain number of “free” meals when you initially sign up. The idea is that you can try out the meal service for less of a financial commitment to see if it’s something that

To celebrate and recognize how our Minters are achieving their financial milestones, we reached out to everyday Mint users like you, to share their stories. Whether it’s acing your savings goals, or paying off your credit card debt, every win counts!  We connected with Zaiba, a financial analyst from Canada to learn about her experience using Mint, and how it helped her and her husband achieve their financial goals. Read on to learn about her #Empowermint story.  I’ve always been extremely involved with my finances and budgeting, and majored in banking and finance at school. Budgeting is extremely important to me as it helps me make wiser financial decisions as well as helps me understand where I can cut off my spending and at the same time, how I should make the most of my savings.  I’d been searching for a good budgeting app for a while when I came across Mint in an article. I first began using Mint six months ago (I wish I’d found it earlier!) to track my finances and create a

Deciding what career to pursue can be difficult when you don’t know where to start or don’t have a passion for a particular field yet. However, planning early on and researching things such as potential salary can help you feel eager to get your future started. Choosing to follow a career field that pays a lot can be a difficult but rewarding process. Whether you’re a recent grad or changing careers, learning more about jobs that can help you live a comfortable life is the first step. In this guide, you’ll find out what careers make the most money and what you need to get started. The Benefits of a High-Paying Job Choosing a career that pays well can be very beneficial for your future. If you are looking to start a family, build retirement savings, or travel around the world, finding a high-paying career can get you a step closer to your goals. Although some people may say that money doesn’t bring you happiness, knowing that you have enough money for all your necessities , such

Minters – You asked for it and now the Mint Budget Widget is available on iOS!  With the new budget widget, you can see where you stand with your budget at a glance, without even opening the Mint app. You can choose from 3 different widget layouts to see your overall budget and top spending categories. The new budget widget is designed to be both convenient and secure so it will never show up on your lock screen.  How to Get Started Step 1: Touch and hold an empty area on your home screen. Step 2: Tap the plus sign (+) in the top left corner. Step 3: Search or scroll to find Mint and tap “add widget” when it pops up.  Step 4: Choose the widget format you like best. Now you have a view of your budget without needing to open the app! Insider tip: A transaction widget is also available. Both widgets have a dark mode version.  The Budgeting Tool You’ve Been Looking For Mint is here to be your all-in-one finances app, where you can connect your accounts, bills, and more – in jus

Ask Beverly Jones, author of the valuable new book, “Find Your Happy at Work,” to describe a time when  she  was happiest at work and Jones instantly smiles. It was, she says, when she was a grad student at Ohio University working as a paid assistant to its president and researching ways for more equal opportunity on campus for women. “In those days, women couldn’t take some courses, like engineering,” Jones, now a Washington, D.C.-based executive career coach, recalled. “Many graduate programs didn’t accept women. It was something I cared totally about. I had absolutely no idea how to go about it, so I had to make it up every day, but it was one of the most intensely enjoyable periods of my life.” The reason, says Jones (one of my go-to career experts, fellow Labrador retriever fan and longtime friend), is that “creating something and making a difference is a great strategy to go to if everything is feeling dull at work.” The secret to happiness at work But there’s more to it. “A

With many parents living in households where both spouses work outside the home, child care has become a significant portion of many budgets. While nobody wants to leave their children in the care of the absolute lowest paying provider, many people are looking for ways to save money on child care expenses. Here are a few hacks to consider if you’re looking for ways to save money on childcare. Use Dependent Care FSA One of the best child care hacks is a dependent care flexible spending account (FSA). A dependent care FSA is similar to a Health Savings Account. Both are accounts that are typically offered as employee benefits. A Dependent Care FSA allows you to take out money from each paycheck and not have to pay taxes on it. You can then use that money to pay for child care throughout the year. A wide variety of different types of childcare are eligible to be paid for with DCFSA funds, so make sure to check the rules and regulations of your account. By paying for your childcare c

If you spend any time on TikTok, you’ve probably seen financial advice in many forms from investing to savings hacks. While some of the advice is good, some of it is bad and most of it is surprisingly entertaining. We’ll help you figure out which is which, so you can ensure your money is in the right places. Shouldn’t use: Investing advice A 2020 study from startup Paxful found that 64% of the misleading personal finance videos posted on TikTok mentioned investing in an individual company, like Tesla, Amazon or Alphabet.  Many TikTokers also advocate for day trading, which means buying and selling stocks that day. While it’s possible to make money by stock picking and day trading, it’s much easier to lose money. If you manage to sell stocks for a profit, you have to set aside a portion for capital gains taxes . These are often excluded from the conversation. This can result in a surprise tax bill for investors. Many TikTok influencers also tout various cryptocurrencies as a sol

Starting a regular budget is one of the best things that you can do to improve your overall financial health. But one of the most important ways to stay financially disciplined is to STICK to your budget. This is one of the hardest things to do, and anyone that tells you that they never go over their budget is probably lying. If you have ever had an expensive day or weekend where you fell off the budgeting wagon, here are some tips to help get you back on track. Nobody is perfect The first thing to remember is that nobody is perfect. Again, there is likely nobody in the world that sticks to their budget 100% of the time. The thing to remember if you have an expensive weekend is that the worst thing that you can do is take it as an excuse to completely scrap your budget and go back to just winging it. Instead, your best bet is to take a deep breath, acknowledge what happened and start fresh going forward. Depending on how much you went out of your budget, it can make sense to eith