Archives for July 2016

Infographic: The Best Paying Job In Each State, Relative To National Average

Posted on July 13, 2016 // 3 Comments

Business Insider mined data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and compared the state average salary and the national average salary for each job occupation. The single occupation with the largest percent difference is listed in the infographic below:

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The income numbers are not adjusted for cost-of-living, but as that would apply to all jobs, you are still looking at the greatest outlier and thus some interesting outcomes. For example:

  • The average annual salary for welders and cutters in Alaska is roughly $72,000. That’s 80% more than the national average of $40,000.
  • The average annual salary for tile and marble setters in Massachusetts is roughly $75,000. That’s 70% more than the national average of $44,000.
  • The average annual salary for physical therapists in Nevada is roughly $128,000. That’s 52% more than the national average of $84,000.
  • The average annual salary for judicial law clerks in New York is roughly $111,000. That’s 104% more than the national average of $54,000.

I’m sure there are some economic (or “freakonomic”) explanations for some of these variations. It would also be interesting to run the same numbers for the worst paying job in each state, relative the national average.

Filed Under: Career //

Amazon Prime Day 2016 Deals, Wal-Mart Free Shipping

Posted on July 11, 2016 // 2 Comments

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(Amazon Prime Day was July 12, 2016 and is now over. Some of the related deals below may still be live.)

Last year, Amazon made up it’s own Black Friday-esque holiday and called it Amazon Prime Day. It was mostly disappointing, but this year they have promised to do better and said that any marked deals will be at least a 20% discount from the previous 90-day average price. Hopefully, it will be worth a look and you’ll be able to save money on things you’ve been looking to buy anyway.

You must be an Amazon Prime member to get in on the deals, but free 30-day trial members also count. If you have a .edu e-mail address you can get a 6-month Amazon Student trial and $10.

Here are all the Amazon Prime Day deals, which will last until the end of July 12th 11:59pm Pacific. Selected ones below:

Other Amazon deals that are available:

  • Alexa users can get a $10 discount on their first Amazon order using Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, or Amazon Tap. Talk to your cylinder to find out more.
  • You can buy an Amazon Dash button for 99 cents and get $4.99 credit towards your first purchase. These WiFi-connected buttons can be hacked to do other things.
  • Free gift if you buy something $50+ from your Amazon baby registry.
  • $10 off your first Amazon PrimeNOW order of $20 or more with coupon code 10PRIMENOW. Do this by 7/12 and you’ll get another $10 off coupon on 7/13 that will be valid through 7/31.
  • Get 20% off Amazon Warehouse (open box and/or used items) with promo codes WDEARLY20 or WDEARLY.

I’ll try to update if anything interesting comes up. Note that other merchants will be piggy-backing on the publicity bandwagon. For example, Walmart.com is offering free shipping with no minimum purchase size through 7/15. Stack this with limited-time 5% cash back + $10 new user bonus from eBates, or the free 120-pack of water balloons from Wal-Mart offer ($14.43 value) for new TopCashBack members.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Private College Tuition Discount Rates to Sticker Price Still Rising

Posted on July 10, 2016 // 2 Comments

captuitionThe National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) recently released their 2015 Tuition Discounting Study. While the average quoted “sticker price” tuition went up again as expected, so did the “tuition discount rate”.

For academic year 2015-16, the average institutional discount rate—or the percentage of total gross tuition and fee revenue institutions give back to students as grant-based financial aid—was an estimated 48.6 percent for first-time, full-time freshmen and 42.5 percent for all undergraduates. In other words, these private colleges put about 42 cents on every dollar of tuition and fee revenue toward scholarships and grants.

NACUBO found that 88% of first-time, full-time freshmen and 78% of all undergraduates were awarded some amount of aid. The amount awarded was roughly half of the sticker price for freshmen. The tuition discount rate has been rising rather steadily over the past decade or more:

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Now, I am not saying college tuition is cheap. However, I do think that knowing how these things work can make parents and students smarter consumers. Even though we often think of universities as benign non-profits, in reality many are quite aggressive marketing machines. I’ve written more about tuition discounts before, but here are my brief takeaways:

  • Don’t immediately write off private colleges with high sticker prices. The total costs may be much lower than you think. Private colleges have a lot of discretion, and your application may fit their desired characteristics.
  • Always apply for financial aid. Odds are that you’ll get something, and you could get a lot if they like you for whatever reason (academic numbers, sports, special interests and extracurriculars, other background factors).
  • Your freshmen aid package may be much more generous than in future years. Try to Always get your future aid package amounts in writing.
  • You can even negotiate your aid package with them further after getting your acceptance letter. The worst they can say is no.
Filed Under: College & Education //

Healthy Food Rankings Map: The Most Under-Appreciated vs. Over-Marketed Foods

Posted on July 7, 2016 // 6 Comments

The NY Times surveyed Americans and a panel of nutrition experts about which foods they thought were good or bad for you. Everybody agreed that apples and carrots are healthy food. Everybody agreed that soda pop and cookies are unhealthy foods. Where the experts and the generic public disagreed is where things got interesting. Check out the graphic below, in which I have altered the original a bit (click to enlarge):

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Although the NYT did not say this, I would label the foods that were considered healthier by the general public than nutritional experts as heavily-marketed and usually branded. These are foods that businesses would like you to think are much healthier than they really are. This would include granola bars, coconut oil, frozen yogurt, SlimFast shakes, and highly-processed orange juice. You often associate them with a specific brand like Nature Valley granola bars or Tropicana orange juice.

Along the same lines, I the foods that were considered healthier by nutritional experts than the general public are under-marketed and under-appreciated. These include quinoa, tofu, sushi, hummus, and shrimp. Not surprisingly, these items are less processed and I can’t even come up with a brand for quinoa or tofu. Sabra for hummus, I suppose.

Finally, hovering in the 50% range for both groups are things like steak, pork chops, whole milk, and cheddar cheese. These seem to be the “not junk food, but only eat in moderation” category.

Filed Under: Frugal Living //

Where Should You Focus Your Energy? Earn , Save, Grow, or Preserve

Posted on July 6, 2016 // 2 Comments

While I often talk about your savings rate as an important metric for reaching financial freedom, I also follow that up by talking about managing both parts of that formula: earning more and/or spending less. Focusing your energy on a specific task is often better that trying to do everything perfectly and getting frustrated when you can’t juggle all the balls at once.

Financial planning expert Michael Kitces has come up with a helpful framework called The Four Phases Of Saving And Investing For Retirement that is related and also takes into consideration your portfolio size. This graphic he created explains it well:

fourphases

Here are my own notes and paraphrasing (please read original post for his own words):

  • Earn. First, you need income. Focus on your human capital to help you earn more. Invest energy into your education, career skills, and network (surround yourself with good people). If it fits your personality, take a risk and start a business.
  • Save. Once you have significant income, be sure to save a big portion of it. Create systems and habits to help keep your spending modest. A 30% or 50% savings rate for above-average earners is not out of the question.
  • Grow. Once you have significant savings, spend some time developing a set of solid investment beliefs and a written plan. Devote time specifically to learning about investing and/or find and hire a trusted advisor. Your money should always be making more money.
  • Preserve. You should only need to get rich once. Do you have proper insurance in place? Create a long-term plan to preserve and ultimately live off the income from your investment portfolio and other assets.

You can pay attention to the other areas, but I like this lifecycle method of prioritizing your finite time and energy.

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Investing, Retirement //

Morningstar Target Date Fund Comparisons: Vanguard, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price

Posted on July 5, 2016 // 1 Comment

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Target Date Funds (TDFs) get their name because they adjust their portfolio holdings automatically over time based on a given target retirement date. The overall growth of TDF assets continues, especially within employer-based 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans. Morningstar recently released its 2016 research study called 2016 Target-Date Fund Landscape:

After laying out a general overview of the target-date industry, this year’s report highlights analysts’ best practices in comparing and contrasting target-date series according to Morningstar’s ratings pillar framework, demonstrating the benefits of going beyond conventional evaluation practices.

I found the report full of interesting statistics and insights, but at 84 pages it is also rather long. Here are what I consider the highlights.

The Big 3 providers are still Vanguard, Fidelity, and T. Rowe Price. As you can see below, they combine for 70% of all TDF assets. This number is actually slightly lower than three years ago, however. Vanguard is the current leader, taking over Fidelity’s spot.

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All Target Date Funds are NOT created the same… Consider the huge gap in possible equity percentages vs. time (glide path).

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…but the Big 3 TDFs are all relatively similar. Before retirement age, the glide paths are very close. They start to differ more significantly after the retirement target year.

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Vanguard leads the way with the highest total assets, lowest expense ratio, and the only Gold Morningstar Analyst Rating. You can feel the effect of Vanguard in that the average asset-weighted expense ratio has decreased industry-wide every single year since 2009. You can bet that this wouldn’t be the case of Vanguard wasn’t so successful.

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We personally have access to T. Rowe Price and Fidelity TDFs in our respective 401k plans, although we don’t own shares of either. I would recommend my own family to buy the Vanguard Target Retirement family of funds. If you own one of the lesser-known TDF families, I would download the Morningstar paper and see how it compares. You may be surprised by the inner workings.

Filed Under: Investing, Retirement //

Chase Freedom 10% Back on Hotels and Car Rentals via Ultimate Rewards

Posted on July 5, 2016 // 1 Comment

The Chase Freedom credit card has a new special promotion offering 10% cash back on up to $2,500 in combined hotel and car rental purchases made through Chase Ultimate Rewards in July. Details:

  • The purchases must be made July 1–31, 2016.
  • Your actual travel dates can be any time.
  • Applies only to hotels and car rentals booked through ChaseUltimateRewards.com.

In general, ChaseUltimateRewards.com offers prices that are comparable to Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. Hotel prices do vary more than airfare, so I would still comparison shop side-by-side. Note that their hotel room quotes include taxes, which some other sites (like Expedia) add in very late in the checkout process. Also, I found how they listed rooms by TripAdvisor rating to be interesting.

This is addition to the quarterly 5% cash back category, which currently includes Restaurants and Wholesale Clubs (Costco, Sam’s Club, BJ’s).

Filed Under: Credit Cards, Deals & Offers //
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