business costs

6 Ways Workaholism Is Costing You Money

Andrea Karim — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 09:00:08 +0000

Putting in long hours on the job doesn't have to be a bad thing. If you truly love what you do for a living, working at it passionately can help advance your career, build an important business, help others succeed, and even make you happy.

But there's a line every worker can cross when burning the midnight oil starts to wreak havoc on their finances. These are some of the ways working too much can be a problem for your money.

1. You probably overpay for last-minute meals

When you work nonstop, eating is often an afterthought — which is why you end up shelling out extra money for things that you don't have time to fix for yourself, like takeout food and drinks. These quick bites add up fast. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American household spent $3,008 on restaurant and takeout meals in 2015. If you had more time in your schedule to pack a lunch from home, imagine how much money you could be keeping in your pocket. (See also: How to Stop the Takeout Meal Cycle and Save)

2. Your medical costs can increase

Patients with one or more chronic conditions account for 86 percent of health care spending by American citizens, their insurance companies, and government programs. As of 2017, U.S. total annual health care costs topped $3.4 trillion.

You're wondering what this has to do with you? Well, if you're putting in too many hours behind a desk, chances are you're also guilty of some seriously unhealthy habits: not sleeping enough, drinking too much coffee, eating irregularly, and not exercising, just to name a few. When these habits are compounded over time, it can set you up for any number of chronic health issues that aren't cheap to manage.

From obesity, to diabetes, to heart disease, sacrificing your health for your job is almost guaranteed to empty your wallet. According to eHealthInsurance.com, in 2016 the average annual deductible for unsubsidized individual health insurance plans was $4,358, and the average deductible for family plans was $7,983. Once you've managed to develop a chronic condition, you're more likely to have to hit that deductible earlier in the year. (See also: How to Handle a Massive Medical Bill)

3. Your family life can crumble

It seems obvious that people who work too much have less time to spend with their families. But if your job is ruining your marriage and affecting your relationship with your kids, I'll let you in on a secret — divorce isn't cheap.

Don't believe me? Sure, it's possible to have an amicable, uncontested divorce where both parties agree on everything. But the average divorce in the United States costs between $15,000 and $20,000. Most divorce spending is attributed to attorney's fees, but you'll also encounter court fees, costs related to real estate divisions, education fees (parental education is required in some states), and costs of neutral evaluations.

That's not even counting the additional cost of housing that you'll face once split, or child care. Child care can be a significant expense, although costs vary greatly depending on where you live.

4. You eat unreimbursed business costs

From travel expenses to at-home office costs, anything that isn't reimbursed by your employer, or written off on your taxes, is a loss.

Did you upgrade to business-level internet services at home to ensure that you're never without high-speed connectivity? That's a business cost. Do you need an expensive mobile data and voice plan to keep pace with work demands? That's a loss unless your business is covering it. How much of your driving is related to business (outside of a regular daily commute)? Documents? Website costs? These expenses aren't cheap, and they add up quickly.

5. Your career may stall if you can't delegate (or finish anything)

What's the point of working your butt off if you aren't making any career advancement? Some people have a tendency to tackle all the work themselves, partly because they don't know how to say no, and partly because working is in some ways an addiction.

The problems arise when you hope to climb the corporate ladder. A good manager knows how and when to delegate, how to support a team, and how much pressure is enough to get the best work from underlings. A manager who can't properly delegate tasks and manage time can alienate coworkers (who don't get a chance to pitch in on important projects) and people who report to them (who feel the need to suffer under mountains of work in order to keep up appearances).

Even though it may seem like doing everything yourself is better for your career, it's often the opposite. If your insistence on being The One prevents you from getting promoted and moving into a higher-paying position, your tendencies to overwork are hurting your earning potential, not helping it. (See also: 12 Ways to Finally Get That Promotion This Year)

6. You have to outsource everything else

Delegating tasks at work is one thing — that's part of ensuring that all work is done on time and ensures even distribution of labor. But what about your unpaid work — the work of maintaining everything else around you? Are you paying someone else to:

Do your laundry?
Clean your house?
Mow your lawn?
Care for your children?
Vacuum your car?
Run errands?

If so, this is costing you big-time. There are some home-related tasks that should be done by professionals (electrical work comes to mind), and if you really hate mowing the lawn or vacuuming, it's fine to pay someone else to do it if you can afford it. But if you're outsourcing every single task around the house because you're never home or free to do them yourself, you're throwing hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars away per year.

Evaluate your work-life balance

Every few months, take a good hard look at the hours you spend and whether you are devoting enough time to the nonwork parts of your life. There's no magic number that fits for everyone. You have to decide what works for you and your loved ones. But do check in regularly, to evaluate your goals and consider your priorities. (See also: 9 Signs Your Work-Life Balance Is Off)

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This article is from Andrea Karim of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

5 Daily Deal Sites for Small Business

Linsey Knerl — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:43:09 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/5-daily-deal-sites-for-small-business

If you thought the daily deals sites were only for those interested in restaurants, gifts, or spa services, you may be surprised and delighted to learn that small business owners can also find applicable discounts through these types of retailers. Here is a list of sites that offer exclusive bargains perfect for your home office or entrepreneurial dream.

Startups.com

If saving up to 90 percent on a hot web app is your thing, then Startups.com may be for you. Each deal is tested prior to being advertised, and the offerings have quite a variety. Past deals include apps for gaining more Twitter followers, organizing tips for your cloud-based documentation, professional translating tools, and web-based hosting. Startups.com offers a 30 day money back guarantee for all purchases, as well is a $10 refer-a-friend program.

BizDeals.com

For those looking for more tangible savings, BizDeals.com can help you out. By using the power of group discounting, the site can offer significant savings on items like telephones, video cameras, and tradeshow printing services. The majority of the deals still seem to be service-based (web design, for example), but there but are definitely deals here that aren’t posted elsewhere. [Note: Like all deal sites, do some research before committing to a purchase. Some of the bargains we found here were widely available to anyone and weren’t always the best price.] There are usually no more than two deals running at a time on this site.

AppSumo

The new love of my life is AppSumo, a highly addictive shopping site with everything from e-books to virtual seminars to design services. Perhaps the most valuable deals listed here are those that promise to educate. Techies will love the tutorials designed to up your programming skills or social media strategy. You don’t have to be a hard-core IT buff to enjoy the deals, however. Some of the most popular bargains would be useful to anyone; a recent deal involved a deep discount on test prep software for the SAT, ACT, GRE, and more! AppSumo has a 100 percent money back guarantee and gives $10 credit per each referred sale.

GroupPrice

When you’ve found yourself with a shrinking budget, but need some of the more traditional marketing and promotional services to fulfill your business plan, GroupPrice may be able to help. This site offers quite a few deals at a time, and the offerings range wildly. Some of the more notable deals include items that mid-sized businesses would likely buy anyway: automated calling services, remote staffing, and even online video spokespeople! If you’re still in the homegrown stages, however, you may find their venture capital pitch review or stock video footage services to be more your speed.

RapidBuyr

Looking for a decent price on a laptop, printer, or full-color ad in a major magazine? RapidBuyr strives to provide high-end goods and services to business owners with their competitive deals. Like more generalized deal sites, RapidBuyr offers a credit equal to the unused portion of a deal you purchase and are unable to redeem, and most deals run from 1-5 days (provided they don’t sell out first!) One handy feature of the site is an embedded price comparison chart that shows major competitor’s pricing and what they call “street pricing.” Our own searches found that they were, indeed, at least 10 percent lower than all outlets on the deals that were active at the time.

Finding more deal sites can be dangerous (especially if you like to shop.) As a small business owner or purchasing manager, however, they can also provide the potential to stretch that buck in some hard economic times.

Have you used a business deal site? Is there one you love that we missed?

This article is from Linsey Knerl of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Where to Save and Where to Spend

Annie Mueller — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:41:36 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/where-to-save-and-where-to-spend

There's thrifty, and then there's cheap. Which one are you?

When profits diminish by a little bit, you get concerned. When the economy rumbles and your entire market segment stops buying, you panic. Panic is not your friend.

If you eliminate what you need in order to operate your business and produce what you sell, you won't be able to keep up when customers do start buying again. A smart savings approach is the answer. Get your heart rate back down to normal, then peruse the save/spend list below.

SAVE	SPEND
Traditional advertising	Online advertising/new media
Marketing/PR Firms	Outsourced freelancer or employee to do marketing work
Extraneous employee perks	Important employee benefits
Travel expenses	Professional accounting/tax services

Save on Traditional Advertising

Advertising is dead! Long live advertising!

Print publications, radio ads, and television ads are no longer the only, or even the best, ways to advertise. You know this already. Now act on it.

Take the leap of faith that, after all, those statistics about millions of people doing their research and shopping online are accurate. Then cancel your Yellow Pages ad, your newspaper ad, and all other advertising in traditional media sources. At the very least, cut that budget by 50%.

Spend on Online Advertising and New Media

Build up your business website; pay for some SEO consulting. Set a monthly budget for online advertising, which can cost much, much less than traditional advertising.

Save on Marketing/PR Firms

Since most of your advertising can be done via social networking, switch your whole marketing and public relations strategy to online venues. If you're not sure about how to do this, then hire a consultant for a specific task. For example, hire someone to help you set up an appropriate online profile and a social media strategy. Don't, however, spend money on open-ended objectives like "get us more publicity."

Spend on a Freelancer or Employee for Marketing Work

Pay an employee or outsource to a freelancer to do the actual work of marketing your business online. This work could include ongoing SEO research, creating content for your website and blog, keeping up with social networking, writing press releases, and finding (free) opportunities for publicity online.

Save on Extraneous Employee Perks

Perks are great; who doesn't like a free lunch, or free coffee, or free bagels on Friday mornings, or valet service, or a gym membership? But these perks, small as they are, add up quickly. Given the choice, your employees would probably choose job security and continued wages over a couple of small perks. If you're not sure, ask them.

Spend on Important Employee Benefits

Health insurance tops the list. Allowing employees to have flexible hours or telecommuting options is also an important benefit that can improve employee productivity and give them more control of their lifestyle. It can also save you money on overhead costs (less office use).

And while "wages" aren't exactly a benefit, keeping employee salaries at a livable level allows you to keep the good employees who will help your business survive.

Save on Travel Expenses

First question: does anyone actually need to travel to X event or Y client meeting or to make Z presentation? With all the options to connect via the Internet, travel itself might be extraneous. Don't go or send your employee unless it's actually necessary. You'll save money for your business and time for everyone involved.

Second question: if the travel is necessary, skip the expensive upgrades. Get there, get the job done, get home. You can accomplish these things without traveling business class, hiring a limo service, or staying in a suite.

Spend on Professional Accounting Services

Business taxes can get complicated, and small business owners who don't specialize in tax law can spend a lot of time trying to figure it all out... and still end up paying more than they had to on taxes. Spend some money on a professional CPA to do this work for you and you can save even more than you spend.

Remember, cheap doesn't mean smart. Cheap means cheap. Smart means making good decisions, spending where you need to and saving where you can without sacrificing the quality of your business.

This article is from Annie Mueller of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

5 Ways to Waste Money at Your Business

Elaine Pofeldt — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:08:09 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/money/article/5-ways-to-waste-money-at-...

No one starts a business with the idea of pouring money down the drain. But even if you think you have been ruthless about hunting down “leaks” in your budget during the downturn, you may be surprised to find that your company still has some.

Whether we are heading into a recovery or a double dip recession may be an open question. But one thing is certain: No matter what the economy does, your venture will be better off if you avoid these money wasting mistakes.

1. Going Gaga for Growth

I recently asked Nat Wasserstein, who does turnarounds of troubled businesses at NS Wasserstein & Co. in New York City, to identify what he sees as the top areas of waste in the businesses he sees near death’s door. “A lot of businesses get in trouble by becoming googly-eyed for growth,” he says. Some business owners get so excited about winning an order from a marquee-name client that they don’t take time to determine if the sale will be profitable, he explains. Because big clients typically set the terms, the profit margins may be pretty low. If the entrepreneurs must borrow money at a high rate to pay for the labor costs and materials to fill the order, the deal may end up costing a business money. In a worst-case scenario, the interest on the debt may be so unwieldy that the company folds.

2. Techno Addiction

Many struggling businesses have spent money on software that isn’t all that useful and requires excessive staff time — and expensive consultants — to manage (as well as costly annual license renewals), says Wasserstein. Often, it would be more efficient to simply jot down the information being stored in the software on a piece of paper, he says. “There is almost an intoxication with technology,” he says. To avoid this trap, do your due diligence on any software you plan to purchase by asking other business owners about their experience with it. (LinkedIn is a good way to connect with them).

3. More-Is-Better Marketing

Don’t spend money on expensive forms of advertising, such as TV spots, without testing whether a given method is the best one for you, says Wasserstein. “You might be better off with a quick sentence on AM radio,” he says. Make sure you have set up a system to gather concrete data on response rates to any form of advertising or marketing you use — even if it is simply sending out post cards — and that you pay close attention to these results when making decisions.

4. Trade Show Mania

Don’t make the mistake of spending money to attend trade shows that don’t contribute to the bottom line, says Wasserstein. He advises that business focusing on the small number of trade shows that are crucial in their industry. And don’t get carried away with developing your booth, if it will make your presence at a trade show unprofitable, he adds. “You can have a small presence,” he says.

5. Willy Nilly Web Planning

As an editorial consultant, I have noticed that many small companies spend far more on their websites than they should because they don’t build their sites in an organized way. The owner may, for instance, start out working with a designer without talking to the marketer he plans to use to create the copy for the website — and discover later that the design isn’t suited to the marketer’s approach. It may, for instance, be so image-heavy that has little room for copy, or it doesn’t incorporate a blog the marketer wants to add. Then the owner has to spend money undoing or changing the designer’s original work.

When you build a site, it makes sense to have three key people on your team from the get go: a designer, a marketing or content strategy consultant and a web developer. (A project manager doesn’t hurt, but if you’re organized, you can play that role). You should have regular meetings or conference calls with the team so to make sure everyone is working toward the same goals, to troubleshoot potential problems and determine if any changes being suggested will require technological work that will be too expensive for your budget. It’s far more costly to undo the damage that a poor website design can cause than to pay these folks to join a 30 or 45 minute call every week for the two or three months when your website is being built. Many marketing firms, both large and small, can put a web team to work for you, which can be a timesaver. It can also save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

This article is from Elaine Pofeldt of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: