Category Archives: Advice & Tips

Holiday Tip and Gift Guidelines

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As we recover from Thanksgiving, we turn to Black Friday and then Cyber Monday, so the holiday season is in full swing.

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Part of your gift giving may be tipping those around you upon whom you depend. While gift giving etiquette may be obvious in some instances, it can get less clear when considering gifts for people outside of your friends and family. So, to help you navigate the season, we have put together a guide of suggested amounts for gifts and tips, as well as final comment on notes and cards in lieu of cash.

We all have people in our lives that help us keep our families, homes and businesses on track and get through each day as we move forward throughout the year. In many cases, the services they provide ensure we can go to work, have clean homes and stay fit, including caregivers, delivery, home maintenance, and personal care services:

Caregivers (for kids, parents and pets, too!)

Caregivers for your children, parents and pets can be lifesavers. They provide care, education, exercise, and attention to those you care about most. This is the time of year to let them know how thankful you are for all that they do. The amount of service they provide and the arrangement you have with them can dictate the appropriate gift level:

  1. Nanny/au pair – a week’s salary and a small gift;
  2. Daycare teachers – a $25-$70 gift;
  3. Home healthcare worker – a week to a month’s salary;
  4. Teacher – a small gift and a handmade card from your child;
  5. Dog walker – depending on your walker’s schedule, you may want to gift a day’s pay or a full week’s pay; and
  6. Dog groomer – half the cost to the full amount for the service.

If you contract any of these services through an agency, you may want to contact the agency to find out if they have a gift-giving policy in effect. If the agency prohibits gifts, consider alternatives like making a donation to the agency or sending in homemade cookies to the office.

“Neither snow nor rain…”

Despite the weather, terrain or traffic, your mail carrier delivers your mail every day and your online purchases arrive on time and in good condition. Let those who make those deliveries know you’re grateful. In deciding what and how much to give, consider the particular company’s gift giving restrictions:

  1. Mail carriers – are not prohibited from receiving cash gifts and gifts more than $20;
  2. FedEx – employees may accept gifts under $75, though no cash or gift cards;
  3. UPS – workers are allowed to accept tips, but UPS discourages the practice; and
  4. Newspaper delivery – $10-$30 is standard.

Home Maintenance:

Whether you live in a single-family home or a large apartment building, it’s likely there is someone who services your home or property in some way.

  1. Trash and recycling collectors – $10-$30, which you may want to mail directly to the collection company if you’re not home to hand deliver it;
  2. Doorman – $25-$100;
  3. Regular cleaning person – the cost of one visit;
  4. Landscapers/gardeners – $20-$50 per person or if you have just one person doing the work, the cost of one visit;
  5. Parking garage attendant – $10-$50; and
  6. Building’s handyman, superintendent and custodian – $20-$100.

If you have someone who always goes the extra mile, such as a handyman who’s prompt and efficient or a doorman who is quick to carry heavy packages for you, then a larger tip may be warranted.

Personal Services:

It’s hard work keeping you fit, perfectly coiffed and beautiful, but recognizing the efforts of those who do is easy and may also buy you scheduling flexibility when you really need it. In deciding whether to tip and how much, consider this:

  1. Hairdresser/manicurist – if you’re a frequent visitor, tip the cost of one visit. If you’re a less frequent customer, then $20. However, if you tip generously through the year, you do not need to give an extra tip at the end of the year;
  2. Personal trainer – up to the cost of one cost;
  3. Massage therapist – also cost of one visit; and
  4. Golf or Tennis instructor – a thoughtful gift.

If you’re unable to tip or give a gift, a thoughtful thank you note will acknowledge the good work these people do for you throughout the year. Another effective gesture of gratitude is to send a thank you note to the supervisors of the people who provide you with great service throughout the year, letting them know how impressed you are with the service you receive. Good feedback is appreciated by both the supervisor and the people who are helping you out.
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Don’t Rush to Pay off Your Student Loan – make a plan first

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This may surprise you: you should worry more about saving for retirement than paying off your student loan. Yes, there are many bloggers testifying to how they paid off their loans, and many trying to tell you that you need to too. The frequency of such posts does not mean that they are right, or that they have factored in all that you need to for a “best use of cash flow over time” plan. In fact, paying off student loans that have relatively low interest rather than investing will be a costly mistake.

Compare student loan payoff blog posts to the many advisors who encourage paying off your mortgage. The urgency to retire your mortgage belongs to the Silent Generation, who survived the Great Depression and are risk adverse. Paying off a mortgage is usually not the way to maximize your net worth. (Watch for a post on “rent vs. buy” discussing investing and use of mortgage debt.) Furthermore, tying up so much capital in a house lacks for diversification and liquidity – you cannot sell your daughter’s room to cover tuition when she goes off to college.

How do you decide what loan to pay off when? Start with this rule:

Whenever the interest rate on debt is less than the annualized return on investments, only pay the minimum on the loans

because the investments will grow faster than using the same cash to pay off debts

The term “annualized” returns is key here, as one good year is not a good measure, nor is a recent bad year; you want the 5 or better 10 year average return.

Next, when applying this general rule to yourself, be sure to use after-tax values. You can deduct home mortgage interest in most cases, a portion of student loans in some cases, and credit card debt in almost no cases, while you can deduct your investment in your retirement plan and what you invest grows tax-free until withdrawn. Roth IRAs do not give you a deduction now, but do grow tax free and withdrawals are tax-free.

Here is a quick example: say your retirement plan is all in ETFs, so it grows at about 7% per year over time, say you have a student loan with an interest rate of 3%, because you consolidated all your undergrad loans, and it has a minimum payment of $500 per month, and say you have $1,000 per month for which you want to devise the best plan. Apply no more than the required minimum to student loan and invest all the rest, maxing out your 401(k) or 403(b) plan first, and then investing in a Roth IRA next. In 10 years, you will be so much better off than the person who used the full $1,000 to pay her student loan. What if you had a loan with an interest rate of 8%? Tough call. However, because the loan is compounding over time at a higher rate, that persuades me to apply more to the loan, provided that doing so did not give up an employer match on a 401(k) plan.

These examples are overly simple, I realize. Many of you face the quandary of student loan vs. retirement funding vs. rent or buy a home and more. I am working on that …. (Watch for a post on integrating decisions on buying a home, paying off student loans, investing for retirement and all the other issues you are likely to face.)

Steve Jobs said: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” – so how does that help your career path?

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Michael Simmons recalled the impact of Steve Jobs last January in Top predictor of career success 2015.

Simmons then says: “We think we understand what caused his success. We don’t. We dismiss usable principles of success by labeling them as personality quirks. What’s often missed is the paradoxical interplay of two of his seemingly opposite qualities; maniacal focus and insatiable curiosity. These weren’t just two random strengths. They may have been his most important as they helped lead to everything else … Jobs’ curiosity fueled his passion and provided him with access to unique insights, skills, values, and world-class people who complemented his own skill set. Jobs’ focus brought those to bear in the world of personal electronics.”

In the post, he quotes Steve Jobs form 1995: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.”

How does any of this relate to you and your career? Simmons reports from his 2013 interview of an expert on networks that a key indicator is being in “open networks.” He then indicates how that is beneficial:

• More accurate view of the world. It provides them with the ability to pull information from diverse clusters so errors cancel themselves out. Research by Philip Tetlock shows that people with open networks are better forecasters than people with closed networks.

• Ability to control the timing of information sharing. While they may not be the first to hear information, they can be the first to introduce information to another cluster. As a result, they can leverage the first move advantage.

• Ability to serve as a translator / connector between groups. They can create value by serving as an intermediary and connecting two people or organizations who can help each other who wouldn’t normally run into each other.

 • More breakthrough ideas. Brian Uzzi, professor of leadership and organizational change at the Kellogg School of Management, performed a landmark study where he delved into the tens of millions of academic studies throughout history. He compared their results by the number of citations (links from other research papers) they received and the other papers they referenced. A fascinating pattern emerged. The top performing studies had references that were 90% conventional and 10% atypical (i.e., pulling from other fields). This rule has held constant over time and across fields. People with open networks are more easily able to create atypical combinations.

Here is a quote that I find interesting (and can relate to):

This is challenging in that it can lead to feeling like an outsider as a result of being misunderstood and under-appreciated because few people understand why you think the way you do. It is also challenging, because it requires assimilating different and conflicting perspectives into one worldview.

And this really does ultimately get back to Steve Jobs, who said “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” If you have not read, or better yet, watched this, find time to do so: The 2005 Stanford commencement address Jobs – “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Michael Simmons is a bestselling author and the co-founder of Empact, a global entrepreneurship education organization that has held 500+ entrepreneurship events including Summits at the White House, US Chamber of Commerce, and United Nations.

Scam update for more on Cyber-Attackers, Cloud Computing – be Vigilant!

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We wrote before about the need for vigilance to protect you from cybercriminals. We drew on input from Norton Antivirus about social media scams. In this post, we draw upon the Kiplinger’s Tax Letter and SingleHop.com site.

IRS e-mails – You might not think that tax preparers would fall for e-mail scams, but some do. The 2-27-15 Kiplinger’s Tax Letter describes use of bogus e-mails asking professionals to “update their IRS e-services accounts and their electronic filing ID numbers plus provide personal data.” As we have said in prior posts, the IRS categorically states that they do not send out e-mails.

Cloud Computing – SingleHop is a company endeavoring to be private cloud experts. They champion users holding cloud servers accountable for maintaining high level, monitored and updated security for all client files. Their recent newsletter notes that over 250,000 complaints were filed with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (ic3.gov) in 2013 alone, of which over 20% were under age 30. (For more on how “private cloud” computing fits in the internet infrastructure, here is a helpful SingleHop page: [[https://www.singlehop.com/private-cloud-hosting/|SingleHop site]])

They caution you not to rely on links from e-mails to the websites you frequent. Instead, they encourage you to create bookmarks for these websites to ensure that you are logging onto the site you intend. They also favor sites that use two levels to authenticate you before granting access to personal information. “With such methods, after logging in with your password, the site will text or email you a single-use code that must be entered. Only the registered phone number or email address will receive the code, making it that much harder for hackers to gain unauthorized access to your accounts.”

Scam Update – With the cautions from both sources in mind, we updated our post, to help you remain vigilant:

//Hidden URLs// – Those shortened URLs are convenient, but they may be links to websites you don’t want to visit, or worse, they could install malware on your computer. SingleHop admonishes, “Especially look out for slightly misspelled words or words that use unexpected characters, such as substituting a “0” (number) for a “0” (letter) — for example, HOME DEPOT. If something looks even a little bit fishy, delete the email or close the site immediately.”

//Phishing Requests// – When you get an invitation to click on any link, think twice. When you click, you may be taken to a fake Twitter or Facebook or to a bank, credit card issuer, or another financial institution login page. SingleHop says “Phishers will design their sites to look exactly like the website of your” institutions. If you fall for the fake website, and enter you username and password, the cybercriminals can use your information on the real website to gain complete control of your account.

//Hidden Charges// – Be wary of those online quizzes that offer to tell you interesting information about yourself like which 1960s sitcom star you resemble. If the quiz asks you for personal information, such as your phone number, stop. If you continue, you many end up subscribing to some service that charges a recurring monthly fee.

//Cash Grabs// – It’s great to make new friends, but maybe not by “friending” strangers on Facebook. That person you just friended on Facebook may soon be asking you for money. You can avoid this situation by limiting your social media connections to people you know personally. Ignore friend requests when you do not know the person and have no friends in common.

//Chain Letters// – Sure, you want to be sure that Microsoft will donate the millions it promised to some worthy charity if you keep the online chain letter going. However, such “chain letter” e-mails are a way for spammers to access your friends to connect with them later. Also, you never know to whom your friends will forward the letter.

Sites that are popular with users are popular with criminals, so remain vigilant when you are on line, and, of course, keep your antivirus and anti-malware software up to date. Be wary and think twice before clicking on a suspicious link!

Make customer service calls work for you – Get them on your side

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Your goal on these calls is to convert the customer service rep to your side so that their goal is to make you happy. Most people in customer service are there because they want to please others; you want tap into that bent.
Here are some easy tips:
1. Be Respectful: Make them feel important and validated. Ask them their name, if they did not give it, and use that in the conversation.
2. Show Gratitude: thank them.
3. Recruit Them: Use terms like “we” and clearly state your objective so you turn the call into a mission, with the representative committed to helping you accomplish it.
4. Remain Calm: Avoid trigger words, anger and any swearing. Otherwise you risk losing the bond you created. Maintain the position of being empowered to get what you, as the customer, deserve.
5. Communicate Your Determination: Be clear that you are not going anywhere until your mission is accomplished. Be clear that you are not taking any brush off.
6. Escalate: If you are not making progress, then escalate: ask to speak to a manager. Many representatives are judged by the number of calls referred to managers or supervisors, so asking may prompt them to be more helpful.
This approach may take practice (and patience). However, it is quite effective, so you are likely to see good results.