TessMore Finance Blog

Some of the links in this post are from our sponsors. We provide you with accurate, reliable information. Learn more about how we make money and select our advertising partners . How much do you spend each month on your electricity bill? Between blasting the AC during the summer and cranking the heat during the winter, you’re likely spending more than a thousand dollars each year just to keep your lights on. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could skip that bill — for the whole year? Thanks to a company called OhmConnect , you might be able to. How to Skip Your Power Bill for a Year OhmConnect is a free service that works with all the major power companies in California to pay people for saving energy when it matters most to the power grid and the environment. When you create an account with OhmConnect and link your utility account, you’ll get a text about once a week when a lot of people in your area are using power, asking you to cut back on your power usage for an hour. If you save

Whether or not the start of fall brings cooler temps to your neck of the woods, the season is marked universally with the annual rollout of Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte. It’s back now for the 18th consecutive year with the ever-so-popular mix of espresso, steamed milk, real pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. While “skipping the Starbucks” is often touted as a way to save money, you can still enjoy this fall flavor without blowing your budget. Here’s how to save money on the PSL and other fall drinks all autumn long. How to Save Money on Pumpkin Spice Lattes 1. Join Starbucks Rewards Join Starbucks Rewards to start getting free drinks — including PSLs. You earn one star for every dollar you spend if you pay as you go with cash or a debit or credit card. Pay on a preloaded digital Starbucks Card on the app and get two stars per $1 spent. (You get three stars per $1 if you use the Starbucks Rewards Visa card, but The Penny Hoarder isn’t a fan of too many rewards credit cards .)

Over the past five years or so, there’s been an explosion of “early retirement” headlines. It seems as though everyone is rushing to share the latest story about that person or couple in their early to mid-thirties who retired with [insert six-figure net worth here] and “you won’t believe how they did it!” I understand the appeal – retiring in your thirties sounds pretty great. Imagine never having to work again. You can enjoy a life pursuing what you want instead of what your boss wants. Wake up without an alarm, sleep when you want; it’s pretty much complete freedom. But is freedom all it’s cracked up to be? If you are in a position to retire, whether it’s early or “on-time,” there’s a good chance you will not be ready . I wasn’t. If you ask me whether I’d retire or not, my answer is that I wouldn’t. Not because I don’t like leisure, I just don’t view retirement in the same way the mass media portrays it. In 2010, at the age of 30, I sold a personal finance blog and effectivel

For many prospective homebuyers, affordability is a big factor in determining whether to purchase a house. But, looking at average home sale prices only tells part of what a house might actually cost: the type of house purchased, where it’s located, and many other variables could impact the price of owning a home. Whether an individual opts to build a house vs. buy a house, for example, could affect if they’ll end up paying more. According to the National Association of Realtors, the  median sale price of existing homes  is $295,300. That price point is nearly $34,000 less than the  cost of a new house . Because these numbers reflect all homes across the U.S., though, they only tell a partial story about whether it is cheaper to buy or build a house. For those considering whether they’re  ready to buy a house , it can be helpful to know the true cost of each option before making a choice. Buying an Existing House: What Can It Cost? Sales data suggests that it is often cheaper to b

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

Student loans aren’t just a young person’s problem. At the end of 2020, borrowers age 50 or older held about 22% of the nation’s $1.6 trillion student debt burden, the AARP reports. Most of the debt held by 50-plus borrowers is the result of the borrower’s education. But many people have student loans because they took out federal Parent PLUS loans or co-signed a private loan for their child. If you’re in your 50s, 60s or older and have student loans, retirement may feel out of reach. But there are some ways to deal with your debt — that don’t involve working forever. 6 Ways to Deal With Student Loans in Retirement To pay down your student loans , you can put all your efforts toward eliminating as much of the balance as possible. Or you can minimize the pain to your retirement budget by keeping your payments low, even if that means you may never eliminate your debt. Neither one is the right or wrong approach. However, your options will vary based on the type of loans you have. Fo

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

Monifi is a digital-only bank that has a great new account promotion for folks who have a direct deposit they can move over. They are an online bank, so anyone can open an account, but they are also a division of MidFirst Bank, which is a brick and mortar bank. MidFirst Bank is FDIC insured, Certificate #4063 , and chartered as a Federal Savings Bank regulated by the Comptroller of the Currency. As of this writing, they have 81 locations in five states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas). An added benefit of Monifi, besides the bonus, is that their app has a lot of features that can help you with your budgeting too, which means saving even more money. It’s worth checking out if you don’t already have a favorite app for that. As for the bonus, it’s nice and it’s easy to get, let’s take a look. Discover Online Savings Account – $150 or $200 Discover Bank is offering a $150 or $200 bonus to open your first Online Savings Account. Just open it with the code W

Looking to nail a phone interview you have coming up? Well read on. Interviewing is hard. One of the few ways to make it even harder is to make it a phone interview. In-person, you can read and respond to all of the interviewer’s physical cues, but on the phone you’re often left to guess if they’re engaged in what you have to say or busy checking their inbox while you ramble on. Unfortunately, many application processes begin with a phone interview. I used to hate phone interviews…at least until I learned a few simple tips that turned this typically uncomfortable conversation into a job offer — or a follow-up, face-to-face interview — every time. What is the purpose of a phone interview?  In a phone interview, the interviewer wants a condensed version of your story and why you’ll be good for the job. It’s your foot in the door and a critical part of the interviewing process. It acts as a screening interview to narrow down the candidates.  How to prepare for a phone interview