Jana Says

Money tips all students need to know

October 18, 2012 by Jana Leave a Comment

The following is sponsored content.

With the start of the academic year, comes the beginning of the financial future for many students.
For those starting out on university life, there are some tips they all need to be armed with; and for
those going back for second or third year a little refresh wouldn’t do any harm.

Think about savings

If you’ve been working throughout the summer, you may be heading off with some funds; of if
you’re lucky enough your family members may be feeling generous. Rather than just placing these in
your student bank account to be frittered away, look into opening a savings account. This could be
anything from an easy access savings account to a fixed rate cash ISA. It may sound like the last thing
you want to do, but you’re going to need money down the line.

Budget

Yes you’ve just started univeristy life. Freshmen week is in full swing and there are loads of parties to go to
and nights out spending your new student loan. Budgeting may seem like the last thing you want to
do and the most boring, but you do need to learn to live on a shoestring. Make weekly and monthly
budgets and stick to it.

You also need to be careful with your card. It’s too easy to just pay for everything without the need
for carrying cash; but it’s much easier to keep track of things when you pay for things in cash. If
you’re off on a night out, take what you’re willing to spend and leave the card at home. We all know
how tempting a round of Jager bombs can be when you’ve got the plastic in the pocket.

You don’t need a car

Rolling out of halls with your hair wet at ten to nine and jumping in your car to make an early lecture
sounds like the easiest thing in the world. It may be, but having a car at uni can be costly. There’s
insurance to think of, road tax and the ever increasing cost of petrol. Most university cities offer
great deals on student transport – you’d be foolish not to use them.

Whilst we’re on the subject of travel always make use of what’s available to you. Travelling home on
the train can be expensive. With a young person’s railcard, however, you can save up to a third on
fares. Available until the age of 25, it’s an essential student money tip.

Understand your tax benefits

Everyone says that students don’t pay tax, but if you’re working as well you may have to. If you’ve
earn over £8,105 in the current tax year you’ll be required to pay income tax, as well as national
insurance contributions (NICs) if you earn over £146 per week. If you only work in the holidays
though and you earn under this threshold you aren’t liable to pay tax. Always make sure you keep on
top of this.

Investing basics, part 4

October 17, 2012 by Jana 3 Comments

This is the fourth post in the Investing Basics series, written by Jennifer from To My Girlfriends. I’m thrilled to have her guest posting here, particularly on this subject. It’s been quite informative!

Before I opened my first IRA (individual retirement account), the CFP (certified financial planner) who worked at my local bank gave me a few items to peruse. I was given Morningstar reports on a couple of different funds. I needed to decide if I wanted to invest in a mutual fund that was considered a “value fund” or a “growth fund.” I took these papers home with me and made an “educated” decision based on what was given to me. There was no internet at the time to do any googling so I had to rely solely on this man’s advice, expertise, and these papers.

The Morningstar report I was given had information on what the top 10 stocks of the fund were, how many stars this Morningstar agency gave the fund (5 being the best), and a list of past returns. I honestly don’t remember what fund my original IRA was invested in other than it was in the Putnam family of funds. I looked at the list of companies that the fund was invested in at the time and made my choice based on my opinion of where I thought the most value was. Have you ever done this? In my experience I have found that what I did to choose my investment is not unheard of. One of the other very common dilemmas is that people are so overwhelmed with their choices that they do nothing for fear of making a wrong decision.

Now I know that what I originally based my decision on is called investment style. A lot of time you will see this box on an analyst’s report:

The Size on the left hand side refers to the size or the company in market capitalization. So let’s discuss what a Large Cap, Mid-Cap, or Small Cap fund is and then we will cover Value, Blend, and Growth.

A Large Cap company is a company that has over $10 billion in market capitalization. For example, Wal-Mart, GE, McDonald’s would all fall in this category.
A Mid-Cap company is a company that has $2-$10 billion in market capitalization.
And then there are the Small-Cap companies that have between $300 million – $2 billion in market capitalization.

Keep in mind that most large and mid-cap companies started out as small cap companies. The dollar amounts I inserted are industry standards overall. The valuations of a company change over time. Small cap companies are considered riskier than more established large cap companies, but the advantage of investing in one is the possibility of being on the bottom floor of an up and coming company. The disadvantage is that they aren’t very well-established and could disappear tomorrow.

A Value Fund will invest mainly in companies whose stock is “undervalued” to the industry. The company has fallen out of favor usually because of poor earnings. A lot of value stocks pay dividends.
A Growth Fund will invest mainly in companies whose earnings are supposed to grow faster than their industry standard.
A Blend Fund is a mix of both value stocks and growth stocks.

The biggest challenges for most people is figuring out their style. By this I mean what level of risk can you tolerate. And this will change over time. I have found, through experience, that the less money a person has in investments the more risk they are willing to take on to grow that investment. As the investment grows, the investor will become more cautious to protect their dollars. Of course this is a generalization and totally based on my personal experience with clients and myself.

Is your high interest account as high as you think?

October 17, 2012 by Jana Leave a Comment

The following is a sponsored post.

For most people the last few years have not been easy and as a result, how we treat our money is
more important than ever before. Many people have lost confidence in what could be perceived as
the riskier option of investing, so now the question is ‘what do we do with our savings?’ The answer
for lots of people seems to lie in going back to basics and opting for good old-fashioned savings
accounts. If this is the route you choose the next step is deciding on the ‘right’ savings account.

Check your options

There are now so many out there it can be difficult to know which way to turn and which bank or
building society to trust with your hard earned cash. Each one is ‘tailored’ for a specific plan or
income and claims to be a high interest savings account. However, just because on the surface, it
seems to pay the highest rate of interest, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s the best option. The
clever saver must look beyond the big fat rate and consider their specific situation. Your account
may well offer 4% but often these higher rates are for those who can specifically save weekly or
monthly and so this account may not be for you.

Check the rate

It is important to make sure that the rate you see advertised in big bold letters is the rate you will
actually be receiving, as sometimes the advertised rate includes the money you might make from
the ‘introductory bonus’. If you do choose an account with a starting bonus it’s worth bearing in
mind that when the bonus ends you may end up on a pretty low rate.

Therefore you will either find yourself having to move to yet another savings account or worse still,
you forget when the bonus term ends and your hard earned cash, sits languishing in an extremely
low paying account, washing away any bonus you may have benefited for. Ask yourself if you will
take the time to monitor when the bonus ends and take action and if the answer is no, perhaps
looking at accounts with great rates but with bonuses is the better option for you.

Check the small print

Always check the small print on these accounts and find out what the restrictions are. For example
some terms and conditions may stipulate that you earn no interest at all for the month when you
take money out of your account. There may also be limits on the number of times you can take
money out each year. If you do need to get at your money now, then you do have options in easy
access savings accounts which will allow you to save a chunk of money which gives access after a
certain amount of time (this ensures that you will accumulate interest after a period of time).

There are lots of options out there but it is important to take your own personal financial situation
and weekly or monthly spending into account when choosing.

Motivational Tune Tuesday: Love Song

October 16, 2012 by Jana 1 Comment

Dear Friend,

I will not lie to you. What you are going through sucks. You spend your days alternating between sheer happiness that a terrible, unhealthy relationship is over and mourning the loss of companionship and consistency. But mainly, you obsess over everything that you think is wrong with you and how you screwed up. You ask what you could have done differently and if you had just changed this or compromised that, you wouldn't be alone and miserable. You wouldn't feel unloveable and sad. You'd still be in that relationship that, although it wasn't what you wanted or needed, was still better than being alone.

It's pretty shitty.

But let me say this: it is better to be by yourself than with someone who makes you feel bad and doesn't give you what you need. It is better to be alone than with someone who doesn't support you. It is better to be alone and temporarily miserable than in a relationship with someone who makes you permanently unhappy. And also? You are not alone.

You have friends, amazing friends, who love you unconditionally. You are smart, talented, beautiful and caring. But most importantly, you are a survivor. You have survived–successfull, I might add– way worse than this. And just like you emerged from those situations stronger, the same will happen this time.

And when the time is right, you will find the right person for you. You will find someone who appreciates how amazing you are, and supports all your goals and dreams. Someone who loves you as whole heartedly as you love him. Someone who shows you, with words AND actions, just much you enhance his life.

Because that's what you deserve.

Since you love music, I'm using Tesla's Love Song just for you. Even if you don't watch the video, close your eyes and listen to the words. You need to hear them.

It may not seem like it now but it does get easier. I promise.

Hey, boss! You suck.

October 15, 2012 by Jana 8 Comments

So I have this friend Ryan. And he has a blog. And he writes good stuff. I even guest posted for him! And he's a mentor for Bloggers Helping Bloggers and, in general, just a pretty cool dude. But last week, he posed a question to his fellow Gen Y persons and because I'm technically not Gen Y (I mean, I could be depending on which measure you use but most of them put me at the tail end of Gen X), I couldn't respond to the survey.

So I'm responding in a post. Because it's a topic I feel strongly about and also, I don't like to feel left out (age discrimation is not cool, Ryan).

The gist of the survey was this: he wanted people to describe characteristics of a good and bad boss. Or, why did you leave a job? I feel that, having left multiple jobs over the years, I am an expert. And, despite the sentiment that most people leave a job because of their boss, I only did this once. I usually left because of pay or other reasons, but there was one instance–at the best job I had, sadly enough–where my boss was so unbearable I swore I would never again sell my soul for a paycheck.

What made her so bad? Well, the red flags were there during the interview and hiring process but I figured I could get over that. Little did I know that it would get worse. For instance:

Her moods. Moodiest. Woman. Ever. With this woman, you never knew what you were going to get. And that wasn't just day to day, it was hour to hour. I have never seen someone's moods change so quickly. And so often. I get that we all have our moments and that not every day is sparkles and unicorns. But when you are in charge of people, you need to have consistency. Your staff needs to know what they're getting. Changing your mood on a dime is not a great characteristic of a good leader. It sets a bad tone for morale.

Withholding information. In what I can only assume was a power play, she never gave anyone complete information. When your work is consistently a team effort, each person needs to know what's going on. She would never meet wight the teams as a whole; rather, she would meet individually so then, when we talked to each other, we'd all be confused. And look stupid. She was especially good at doing this prior to meetings with outside agencies. Then she could look like the superhero and come to our aid because we were just the dumb worker bees and she was the smart, informed head of the hive. Not giving your workers all the information they need to do their work so you can look good is a slap in the face to productivity.

Refusing to make decisions. She never made a concrete decision. Ever. And if she did, she refused to put it in writing. She did this so that if something did get screwed up, she couldn't be held accountable. She could just say “I didn't make that decision” or “you're remembering my words wrong”. Again, this was an attempt to always make herself look good at her staff's expense. When you are a leader, you need to make decisions and own up to them, good outcome or bad. That's why you're the boss. Not just to guide your stuff but to make those executive decisions. Failing to do so makes everyone question your leadership ability.

Lack of availability. I get that, as a supervisor, you have many, many meetings. With high level people, outside agencies and your staff. That's fine. In fact, it's more than fine. It's just part of your job. But this supervisor would disappear for hours on end, didn't respond to emails, had no cell phone, and insisted on not maintaining her calendar. This made her completely inaccessible to your staff (and her supervisor, but that's a different topic entirely), which made her an ineffective leader. Your staff needs to have access to you to discuss issues, information, and details. When you disappear and your staff needs you to finish a project, work gets held up. Not good for productivity.

Leading with fear, not respect. This particular supervisor was one of the most vindictive people I have ever encountered. If you disagreed with her, either in private or in public, she would make sure that you were punished. She would exclude you from big, high profile projects, critique your work with overly painstaking scrutiny, or basically find ways to embarrass you. She was rude, a bully, and often ignored common social decencies like saying “hello”. She threatened people to get what she wanted and fear of her sanctions was so high, people did whatever she wanted just to avoid them. But no one respected anything she did. You can't be a good leader if you don't earn any respect. And good people will leave.

No supervisor is perfect and many exhibit one or more of the characteristics. Sometimes on their own, sometimes together. That's fine. We all have our bad days and low moments. It's almost expected. But someone acts like this all day, every day, and that person is your supervisor, it makes for a hostile work environment. And low morale. And general unpleasantness.

If you are in a position of authority at work, don't abuse it. Treat your staff like they are capable, intelligent people. Don't demoralize them. Help them the best you can. Praise them when they do good work; don't just save your feedback for something wrong. Most people don't enjoy going to work. It's even worse when their supervisor is an asshat.

Don't be an asshat.