Categories
Beauty Health & Home

The Best Makeup for Dry, Winter Skin

Makeup For Dry Skin

Winter months are somewhat more challenging than summers when it comes to makeup application. The dry, cracking, itching and breaking skin looks worse under some products, and if someone has sensitive skin, God forbid, the result is nothing short of disastrous.

Your skin loses its suppleness, mainly in part to the dry and heated air inside, combining with the harshness of the cold weather outside. Besides, when you take showers amid the combination of weather elements, it tends to damage your skin more.

Hence, we rounded up some of the best makeup for winter skin for you.

1.    Tinted Face Oil Foundation

This product by Kosas is the best for winter skin because of the beautiful oils in it. The concoction contains jojoba, red raspberry, meadowfoam, rosehip, avocado, and more. This foundation is perfect for hydrating your skin and giving light coverage with an extra glow.

2.    Hyaluronic Acid Tinted Moisturizer

This product by Pretty Fresh is a great moisturizing base for your dry skin in winters. It gives you a glowy finish without sticking in dry patches or making tightening your skin. Despite long hours of wear, your skin will continue to look hydrated.

3.    No Makeup Foundation Serum

This serum, by Perricone MD, is a moisturizing foundation that boosts your skin. It applies as a thin layer of makeup on your face and gives it a revitalizing glow, owing to a blend of peptides, antioxidants, and vitamin E oil.

The foundation covers blemishes well and reduces hyperpigmentation and wrinkles.

4.    Radiant Creamy Concealer by NARS

This product is an award-winning concealer and for all the right reasons. It highlights, contours, corrects, and perfects your skin. It works well for winter skin owing to the creamy formula, which blends effortlessly and gives your glowy and satiny finish.

You can wear this concealer on its own or pair it with a radiant foundation too. Either way, you will get a gorgeous finish you could ask for your sensitive winter skin.

5.    Clinique Moisture Surge Sheertint Hydrator SPF

This product is one of the best that exists currently for winter skins. It is a tinted-moisturizer that is fragrance and paraben-free but nourishes all skin types for an entire day. The product contains a magnificent blend of aloe water and hyaluronic acid to give maximum dewiness and skin health.

If you’re even more susceptible to environmental aggressors, this product is the best protection due to its SPF coverage.

6.    Foundcealer Skincare Foundation Broad Spectrum SPF 20

This foundation from Tarte Babassu is trending for a variety of reasons. The product is hydrating, hypoallergenic, and vegan, so it works wonders for dry and sensitive skin.

The best part is that it gives you buildable coverage to play around to what suits your makeup needs best. The product delivers a plump feel for the skin with all the antioxidants, fatty acids, hyaluronic acid, and vitamins A and E in it.

Final Thoughts

Winters make it challenging to dress up and pull off some fascinating makeup looks. The dry, cracked, and sensitive ones do not give you much liberty to play around with looks. But the products this article highlights promise to make your winter skin look as smooth, glowing, supple, and nourished as can be.

Categories
Legal Social Security Disability

Why Should I Speak to a Disability Lawyer?

Social Security Disability Lawyer

The process of applying for Social Security Disability benefits can be confusing if you’re not sure how to properly fill out the paperwork. You need the right medical documentation as well, and because of this, more than 65% of claims filed are rejected initially.

You can, of course, fill out the paperwork and submit the documentation yourself, but speaking with a lawyer beforehand could be the difference between your application being approved and denied. Statistically speaking, your claim is more likely to be approved if you have an attorney to represent you.

Why Having a Lawyer Can Help Your Case

It’s no secret that your disability application being approved is much more likely if you have an attorney on your side. There are certainly some individuals that take care of the application process on their own and are successful, but that is not the case for most people.

Your best bet is to hire an attorney early on, as they can argue your case from the beginning, starting with providing advice on your “alleged onset date”. They’ll be able to gather evidence to build a strong case. If you choose to wait to hire a lawyer, they can still help you be successful.

When to Contact a Lawyer

Really, you can bring a lawyer in at multiple points during the process, but the sooner you make that initial phone call, the better. Many attorneys will even offer you a free consultation so they can go over the facts and give you legal advice without needing to spend an arm and a leg.

If you can line up a lawyer to help with your initial application, you can avoid a lot of hassle and mistakes during the process. After a denial, they can help you with the appeal process so you can hopefully still get your benefits.

Should I Wait to Contact One?

If you have already submitted your SSA application, then you should wait to hire an attorney. Once you have turned in your paperwork, there isn’t anything an attorney can do to help at this time. Just wait things out and see if you get approved or denied.

Once you receive your response from SSA on your first application, then you may want to proceed with contacting an attorney. If you are denied, they can help you appeal the decision.

Consult With a Disability Lawyer

If you have a medical condition that has begun to interfere with your life, making it impossible for you to work and support yourself financially, contacting a disability lawyer before filling out your application is a smart move. You’ll be able to get advice on your case and have an expert walk you through the application process.

With the guidance of an attorney, you’ll be able to gather all of the medical documentation and other paperwork needed to file a successful claim. You can file online or you can mail in an application.

Categories
Career Career & Education

Want A Promotion? What You Should Be Doing

career promotion

The current employment landscape can be a challenge to navigate, particularly when normal office politics are not playing their normal role in water-cooler chats and the like. But even with lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, many people are still trying to get a promotion. In the best of times, this requires determination, hard work, and often, persistence.

What is the best way to ensure you have the best shot at that promotion? We’re going to take a look. Not only at the #1 thing that will put you ahead of your coworkers, but at additional factors that can also give you a performance edge.

1.   Strong Leadership Skills

The #1 thing you should be doing to get a promotion is to demonstrate leadership abilities. When you are evaluated as a potential candidate for a promotion, you are seen as having the potential to be groomed for management, or even higher. This means you need to be able to lead and motivate effectively.

2.   Add Value

If your organization is going to invest not only time but more money in you, they must see the value that you bring to the table. This isn’t about coming in early and staying late to the point of burnout, that’s boomer value.

Nobody needs seat warmers. You need to bring value to the organization because when your employer invests in you, they are hoping to multiply that value and gain a healthy return on their investment.

3.   Attitude is (Almost) Everything

Attitude in the workplace is crucial. Every office has a person or two that people simply don’t want to work with because they just don’t have a good attitude for whatever reason.

Rest assured that you will be constantly weighed and measured. People seriously considered are going to be people that are respected contributors and morale-builders. Future leaders almost always stand out to current leadership.

4.   Skills To Pay The Bills

Anytime you are being considered for a promotion, your higher-ups will be evaluating your skill set in comparison to other candidates. You should be prepared to show that not only do you engage in personal or professional development but that you plan to continue such.

The habits of older generations were to become skilled in something, and then stagnate at that level. This paradigm is completely dead, and few things are more attractive to employers nowadays than individuals who invest in themselves and commit to growth.

5.   Be Bold

When opportunities come up, jump on them. Be ready to trust a feeling that says “volunteer for that project” when it scares the hell out of you. Growth doesn’t happen in your comfort zone.

When you were hired initially, leadership saw qualities in you that they were confident would bring value to the team. In most cases, that will not have changed, and you will only have honed your skills further. You have the ability to be great, you just need to use it.

Categories
Career Career & Education

In A Career Rut? 4 Tips To Help Stay Motivated

Stuck In A Career Rut

Finding a fair and satisfying work-life balance has become far more difficult in recent months. As the pandemic drags on and we are largely working from home, more people are feeling stuck in their career. Sure commute times are zero, but it can still leaving you feeling like you’re just following the same recipe day after day. Like millions of Americans you might need a little help to keep things fresh.

1.   Never Stop Investing In Yourself

This is number one for a reason. If the things you learn and the skills you develop will increase your value no matter what you do, and you keep them no matter your employer, then it seems like a no brainer. Learning a new skill set can open up significant opportunities without even leaving your current organization.

In addition to building marketable value in desired skills, you may find that a bit of professional or personal development adds a spark of motivation where maybe before was only monotony. Always research new trends, tools, and techniques. Never be afraid to invest your own time and money in your development.

2.   Always Be On The Lookout For Bigger & Better

One of the ways that you can tell it might be time for a career change, is if that motivation just won’t come back and there are no more opportunities for advancement where you’re at. Because, sometimes in long-time positions, you can end up only doing one thing by default, and are overlooked for other positions and opportunities.

Take an objective look at your career, and decide if it really fits with your vision of where you want to be in 5 years, 3 years, or even twelve months from now. If you question it, then it’s time to market yourself and move on.

3.   Increase Focus On Non-Work Activities

It is possible, and incredibly likely in our highly-competitive economy, to become too focused on your career. While what you do is a part of who you are, make sure you retain a part of yourself that is not related to your work.

Make sure you are investing in other parts of your life. So take some time to start a new hobby or activity, many websites and apps provide ways to learn different skills and talents, even other languages, directly from experts in those skills. Taking time away can help you to remain committed to the long game, and can increase motivation when you start to feel like you could be burning out.

4.   Keep The Big Picture In Mind

Don’t forget that this all revolves around your passion, which is the key to retaining motivation. If you get into a rut, then keeping your focus on that passion can be challenging. Keep your career choice vision clearly in mind, don’t be afraid to pivot if you need to.

It’s important to remember that your job isn’t your career, it is just a part of it. Your career will be filled with various jobs and roles that are all ultimately aligned with that choice.

Categories
Financial Savings Tech & Media Technology

Saving Money With These Top Apps

Saving Money Apps

Truth is, if saving money were easy, then half of us wouldn’t make financial resolutions each year. However, we’ve got some money saving suggestions that you can pick-up on at anytime. Consider what we deem to be the 4 best money saving and money making apps to date!

Ready, Set, Save Money!

Many mobile applications boast about their ability to help you save money, but which ones are actually worth it? If you’re busy like the rest of society, then you’re probably also looking for something that’s not super time-consuming. Consider these options below:

Trim

A financial assistant in your pocket, Trim has the power to help you automate your financial life. After securely connecting your accounts, Trim will analyze your connected accounts to determine where you can save more money. It’ll specifically look for those recurring subscriptions you have and cancel them upon your request. Maybe you no longer need those weekly newspapers or monthly clothing boxes, huh?

Trim also has a Bill Negotiator, where it helps users save $5-$50/month with Comcast and more! With Trim, you can really make the most of your money without investing a lot of your time.

ShopTracker

Do you often shop at Amazon and want to get paid for it? Then you might want to check out ShopTracker. Sign-up for an account by simply completing an application. You’ll need to provide the following information:

  • Your name
  • Birthday
  • Street Address
  • Zip code
  • Gender

After that, you’ll be asked how often you make purchases on Amazon, the type of account you have on Amazon, and the number of accounts in your household. If you qualify, you’ll need to install the application and sync it with your Amazon account. Following successful installation, ShopTracker will automatically pull data monthly from your account and you’ll get paid for it.

Chime

Looking for a bank with no monthly fees, overdraft fees, or foreign transaction fees? If yes, then meet Chime! Chime comes with a Visa debit card, savings account, and checking accounting; it’s very ideal for those who like to bank on-the-go. By opting in to their ‘Save When You Spend’ feature, every time you spend money, it automatically rounds up transactions to the nearest dollar and transfers it to your savings account. They also automatically transfer 10% of every paycheck directly into your savings account, so you can’t help but save!

You Need A Budget

An application that can be used on your computer, phone, tablet, Apple Watch, and Alexa is ‘You Need A Budget’. After connecting your bank accounts, you can set-up some goals and start easily tracking them. Individuals who love visuals will love seeing their progress in graph and pie chart form. Need some extra assistance setting up a budget? Check out their live workshops or send them an email!

Digit

Want to save money without thinking about it? Then download ‘Digit’! Once you’ve securely added your bank accounts, Digit will calculate how much you can comfortably save everyday and automatically set it aside for you. The money is added to your Digit savings account and can be retrieved by simply sending Digit a text message. You’ll be able to access the money in your checking account on the next business day free of charge. Guess what else? There’s no account minimums!

Categories
Career Career & Education

Work Hacks? Here Are 9 to Implement This Year

Work Hacks From Home

Are you stuck working from home this year? Looking for the some great work hacks? Well, look no further. Read here for the 9 best work hacks to implement this year.

1.   Leverage The Pomodoro Technique

I used to skip breaks and even lunch on occasion, sometimes working an entire day without leaving my desk. I also have some attention disorders that lead me to be incredibly easy to distract. This technique for taking smaller breaks more frequently helps to manage fatigue, distraction and overworking.

Split your workday into half-hour chunks, and for every 25 minutes of work take a quick 5-minute breather. Stretch your legs, get some water, whatever helps. After four smaller “pomodoros”, take a longer break of 20 minutes.

2.   Stop Notifications

Notifications used to be the bane of my workday. Every single time that little “ding” went off, or a saw a system notification pop up in the corner, I had to check it. It always made me feel like I was just barely treading water, distracted me from my current task or project, and made my workday much more stressful.

Silence your notifications, particularly on your email and your smartphone, and set any messaging apps to “do not disturb”. Not only will this cut down your sense of urgency about everything, and will help you focus.

3.   Prioritize The Important Stuff And Do It Early

Make a to-do list for your day, before leaving for the previous day. This helps you set your priorities based on what you feel you need to do, rather than what’s waiting for you in the morning. It’s also a way to cut out some prep work from the beginning of your day.

4.   Increase Focus With Priority Coding

When you’re creating your priority list, use an easy-to-remember coding system to let you know where the task is located on your task energy spectrum. Use symbols, colors, whatever works best for your thought processes.

5.   Eat Well

I know it sounds silly, but it’s really important for an effective workday for you to eat well. This includes eating breakfast and lunch. Protein is best in the am to get your mind ready, even a simple hard-boiled egg is an order of magnitude better than nothing. Try to do a weekly lunch prep if you’re as equally terrible at daily prep as I am.

6.   Bracket Your Email Time

Rather than leaving your inbox accessible and distracting you every 90 seconds, set yourself scheduled email answering hours. Set aside 30 minutes or so, three times during your workday to read and reply to emails.

7.   Small Goals Add Up

Particularly for larger projects, create a series of smaller milestones that you can reach periodically. These checkpoints are great opportunities to take a breather, evaluate your progress, and gear up to continue. This is a great technique to fight burnout.

8.   Dedicate Time For Self-Care

Seriously dedicate. Make time and block it off in your schedule or calendar, whether it’s a walk, dinner out, or a veg night alone or with a friend. This is incredibly important for your mental health. Scheduling the time disallows you from using the excuse of “there really isn’t time”.

Categories
Financial Real Estate

Want to Sell Your Home? Best Tips and Steps

Sell Your Home

Whether you have decided you are ready to sell your home or you are still deciding if you really want to move or not, understanding the selling process can help you along your journey. Really, the process is pretty straightforward. Let’s take a closer look at what you will need to do to ensure your home sells.

Deciding to Sell Your Home

Before committing to putting your home on the market, you should ultimately ask yourself why you think selling is the right decision. Is your home too small? Outdated? Not in a good location?

After you decide to sell, it is completely normal to be nervous and have doubts about your choice. There are a few signs that show you are ready to take this step:

  • You are equity positive, which means you do not owe more than the value of your home.
  • You are in a position financially that will allow you to buy a home that is a better fit for you and your family.
  • You’ve done a gut check, ensuring your emotional state will allow you to treat the selling of your home like a business transaction without feelings getting in the way of critiques and negotiations.

After you determine that you are totally ready to sell, you should determine the value of your home and decide when you would like to start the selling process.

Best Method to Sell Your Home

When it comes to the actual selling of a home, most people do not have the first idea of what to do. This is where a real estate agent comes in. They are professional home sellers and they will be able to help you get your home on the market.

Real estate agents do a lot:

  • Analyze the housing market to help determine a fair price for your home
  • Help guide you through prepping the house for photos and showings, including decluttering, repairs, and staging
  • Recommend professional stagers and photographers to show the true beauty of the home
  • Using social media and real estate platforms to market your home
  • Find potential buyers to show your home to, highlighting all of the best parts
  • Handle negotiations so you get the best price
  • They do the bulk of the paperwork, and walk you through anything you need to handle

Getting Ready

It can be tempting to completely remodel your outdated kitchen or replace the flooring in the owner’s suite. The most important things to fix are things that matter to buyers. As long as everything is functional, the most important thing to do is keep your home clean, decluttered, and as neutral as possible.

Negotiations and Closing

Once your home is on the market, it’s a waiting game on your end. You essentially wait for people to show interest. When the offers start coming in, you’ll need to make counter offers and choose the best offer, put the offer into escrow, handle any problems related to your deed or title, have the home inspection, and close on the sale.

Categories
Financial Insurance

Home Insurance and How to Buy

Homeowners Insurance

When you purchased your house, you did more than just make a huge financial investment. You purchased a place to call home—a place you could make memories with your family and feel safe. Not to mention, a lot of time and energy goes into finding the perfect house to buy. For all of those reasons, you need home insurance to protect the emotional and financial investment you just made.

We know that buying insurance of any kind is overwhelming, however. There are so many companies, policies, and benefits. It can be difficult to find the best house insurance policy for your budget. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to take you through the steps of finding the best homeowners insurance for you.

Choose What to Cover with Your Policy

A pretty standard home insurance policy covers repair or replacement costs for your home and its contents in the event of peril. The damage could be caused by fire, smoke, water, theft, and more. The coverage includes your main structure and any outbuildings, HVAC systems, and personal property. Your policy even covers medical and legal expenses if someone outside of your family gets injured while on your property.

Unfortunately, standard home insurance isn’t always enough coverage, especially if you have any particularly expensive items. Your insurance policy may even limit the amount of coverage for collectibles, jewelry, and artwork. If this is the case, you can often add extra coverage for a higher premium. You may also be required to get flood insurance, depending on where you live.

It is up to you to evaluate the value of your home and items while also taking into consideration other risk factors. All of these things will help you decide what kind of coverage you need.

Determine Your Home Insurance Coverage Amount

Once you have a better idea of what you need to cover, you’ll know how much coverage you need. We recommend that you start by calculating the replacement cost of your home and any other structures on your property. From there, you need to take an inventory of all of the items in your home and appraise their value. You’ll want to keep an ongoing inventory in case you ever need to file a claim.

If this all seems a bit too daunting, you can always enlist the help of a licensed insurance agent. He or she can walk you through the process and ensure that your inventory is detailed down to the salad fork or gym sock.

We recommend that you pay attention to the wording of your policy. Though your premium is lower for plans that cover the actual value of your items at the time of the disaster, you could end up paying a lot out of pocket to replace things. A replacement value policy ensures that you have all of the coverage you need to pay for a new item.

Select a House Insurance Company

Now that you know the exact specifications of your policy, you’ll be able to narrow down your search for a home insurance company. You should start by finding a list of companies that offer the coverage you need in your area. From there, we recommend that you take a look at the benefits that set each insurer apart from the others. Some examples of what to look for include:

  • Good Discounts
  • Good Financial Strength Ratings
  • High Reviews
  • 24/7 Assistance
  • Exceptional Customer Service
  • Simple Claims Process
  • Other Insurance Products for Bundles

As you can see, it comes down to more than premium rates and deductibles. We recommend that you speak with family, friends, and even professionals to learn more about their personal experiences with insurance companies. An insurance provider who goes above and beyond in your time of need offers more value than simply choosing the lowest price.

Start Shopping by Requesting a Home Insurance Quote

With your shortlist of home insurance companies and policies, you can begin to request quotes. We suggest that you get a home insurance quote from each provider and compare it to all of the benefits they offer. Don’t forget to take the whole picture into account! The best home insurance company should protect the investment you made in your home.

Categories
Financial Savings

Basic Budgeting Tips Everyone Should Know

Budgeting

Whether you are a million-dollar earner or one of the tens of millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, the foundation of every successful financial strategy is budgeting. You need to know where every penny you earn is going if you are going to become the master of your own financial future.

Despite what you may think, budgeting does not rely on strict spending control and eliminating all fun and enjoyment from your life. The biggest benefit to having a budget is to understand your own spending habits and being familiar with your unique financial situation.

The best decisions come from a place of education, so it is essential that you understand how you are spending and allocating your money. Let’s take a look at some of the most vital budgeting tips that everyone should be utilizing.

1.   Use A Worksheet

This isn’t the 1970s, so why create your budget as if it was? Use a spreadsheet that you can constantly keep updated, this will make it easy to stay current. There are also a number of resources for using premade budget templates that can be used with Excel or Google Sheets. These can have a number of categories, expense types, and more, to help you track your money with more detail than ever before.

2.   Understand Overspending

One of the many reasons that you may want to create a budget is to identify areas or categories where you may be overspending. Overspending can throw off your budget since it takes allowances from other categories. Once you know where your overspending tends to happen, you can understand your overspending habits, and begin to put a stop to them.

3.   Keep Your Goals In Sight

Budgeting can be hard without a goal to work on saving toward. This reward can be crucial to your success in budgeting and saving. Start with small goals, and work up from there. Maybe set a small reward for when you’ve managed to save your first $100, then another reward at $250, or even $500. Make sure you keep a mix of short-term and long-term goals so that you can budget for several things at once. Make sure you record your goals and maintain accountability.

4.   Automate Your Savings

This is another way that you can leverage technology to help you reign in your finances. One of the more challenging things about budgeting is saving, but now there are apps that can make this an effortless step. There are ways to not only automate savings deposits from your paycheck but also to deposit smaller amounts automatically.

For example, you can have $20 automatically sent to savings when your check is direct deposited. There are also apps that will round up a debit card purchase to the next dollar and put the rounded change in a savings account for you. This may not seem significant, but if you round up a dollar a day, that’s roughly $30 per month that can be saved without effort.

Categories
Financial Savings

Saving Money: A Complete Beginner’s Guide

Saving Money

Volumes can be written about the psychology behind saving money, but if you’re just starting out trying to save you want real actionable steps to getting some savings built up. Each of these steps can be taken easily, quickly, and can also be expanded to larger scale savings.

1.   Every Little Bit Helps

People often get discouraged when they cannot seem to save money rapidly enough. If it were a race, slow and steady wins. Save a dollar here and there, even a few cents, just don’t touch it unless you absolutely have to. There are even apps that can help you save by rounding up purchases automatically and either saving or investing the spare change. This can be incredibly powerful for people who use their debit cards constantly.

2.   Know What You Should Be Saving

You know that you need to save, but do you know how much? Figuring out what you want to save for, and saving in small incremental goals, can boost your saving success. Save up for something small first, then add on to that, increasing until you have the savings and emergency funds you need for any rainy day.

3.   Make Saving Easy

Saving money shouldn’t be hard. It shouldn’t require you to live like a pauper. One of the easiest ways to save is to gamify it. When you set goals and reach those goals, be sure to reward yourself.

If you like ordering pizza but spend way too much on it, keep track of the times you’d order, and instead of ordering save that money. Once you’ve saved through 4 pizza delivery cravings, treat yourself to a pizza on the 5th. That way you’ve got a nice pile of savings, and a small reward.

4.   Clear Your Debt

Debt is frequently one of the more challenging things to overcome before you can begin saving. It can wipe out any progress that your savings and interest give you. If you have high-interest debt like credit cards, focus on paying that down quickly. While you do this, try to save a small amount, even $20-$30 per month, to help you break the cycle of credit card use.

5.   Pay Yourself First

This is one of the older methods for saving, but it’s one of the easier ones to implement and it helps change your saving behavior. It’s simple, establish a percentage of your pay that you will save and not touch. Many people set this at 10%. So for every hundred dollars you earn, stick ten in savings, and watch that pile up quickly.

6.   Generate Cash

Generating cash might sound crazy, but it’s a legitimate technique for saving. At the simplest, this can look like a credit card with a cash back bonus, where the cashback is dropped into a savings account and left there. More aggressive generation methods are running side hustles, getting a part-time job, or even selling extra stuff to make a few bucks that you don’t need for bills.