3 Ways to Earn Higher Interest on Personal and Business Savings

Building savings is an essential part of a healthy financial life. Everyone should maintain an emergency fund as a safeguard against the unexpected, such as losing your job or getting a large medical bill. Additionally, you might have other savings goals, such as taking a vacation or buying a home.

But the downside of using a typical bank account for savings is that you earn a pittance in interest. Average accounts pay a fraction of a percent, making your money grow painfully slowly. While growth isn’t the purpose of an emergency fund or other short-term savings account, if you can earn more and still keep the account safe, why not?

In this post, I’ll cover three great ways to park your personal or business savings and earn more interest. Plus, you’ll learn how to switch bank accounts as seamlessly as possible when it's time to find a new one.

How to earn more interest on savings

While it’s possible to find a high-yield bank where you live, chances are you’ll need to use one that exists online. Internet-only banks have much less overhead than those with brick-and-mortar locations, so they tend to offer richer benefits.

Internet-only banks have much less overhead than those with brick-and-mortar locations, so they tend to offer richer benefits.

But if you’ve never used a banking institution without a local branch, it can seem a bit unsettling at first. You might worry that if something goes wrong, you won’t have somewhere to go for help.

In my experience, customer service at online institutions is better than at local branches. Instead of keeping “bankers” hours of nine to five, they have service representatives available by phone or chat 24/7.

Most online banks have great mobile apps that allow you to deposit paper checks remotely by snapping a picture. And you can make electronic transfers between accounts in a day or two. So, don’t be afraid to try the online banks that I’m going to cover because they can really pay off.

Here are some of the best ways to earn higher interest rates on personal and business funds.

1. Use a rewards checking account

While you might be searching for a high-interest savings account to earn more money, instead, using a rewards checking could be the ticket. These special accounts pay incredibly competitive rates and offer a variety of additional perks. The catch is that you must jump through some hoops to qualify for the rewards.

For instance, here are the monthly requirements for the free, online TAB Bank Kasasa Cash Checking Account, which pays 4% APY on balances up to $50,000:...

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Plenity Is the New Weight Loss Drug in Town—Does It Work?

Nutrition Diva listener John recently asked me to weigh in on a new FDA approved weight loss drug called Gelesis100.  The drug is not yet available to the public, but it will probably be coming onto the market very soon as a prescription-only drug under the brand name Plenity. I bet it’ll be hard to miss it when it does become available; there will probably be a huge advertising and marketing push.

But is this new drug going to be the one that turns the tide against obesity?

Previous pharmaceutical approaches to weight loss have all had major drawbacks. Stimulants like phentermine are effective in suppressing appetite, for example. But they can be habit-forming, not to mention that the pesky side effect of occasionally stopping your heart.  Other drugs such as orlistat (marketed as Alli and Xenical) are somewhat effective in blocking the absorption of fat and calories from foods. Unfortunately, they also block the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients, not to mention having a rather embarrassing side effect requiring frequent underwear changes.

Plenity is designed to reduce food intake by making you feel like you’ve had more to eat than you actually have.

This new drug takes a different approach that avoids the worst of these side effects. It is designed to reduce food intake by making you feel like you’ve had more to eat than you actually have.

The drug is made from two compounds that occur naturally in foods—cellulose and citric acid. You swallow three capsules with a big glass of water before meals. The capsules release particles in your stomach, which rapidly absorb water and expand to form a harmless gel. This gel has no calories, but it takes up room in your stomach and intestines. With less room in your stomach, the idea is that you’ll eat less and lose weight.

How well does Plenity work?

In a clinical trial, people who used Plenity and also followed a reduced-calorie diet and exercised moderately lost more weight on average than those who reduced calories, exercised, and took a placebo. About 20% of those in both groups dropped out before the end of the trial, which was scheduled to last about six months. Of those who completed the six months, the group taking Plenity lost about 6% of their weight, while the group taking a placebo lost about 4%. 

The group taking Plenity lost an average of 14 pounds while the placebo group lost an average of 10 pounds. So, we’re only talking about four...

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How to Support Your Kids in Their Chosen Sport

When your kid comes home from school and announces that they want to join a sports team, you support them. Studies have shown that sports are incredibly beneficial for kids and teens. Not only are young athletes more likely to be physically healthy, but they tend to develop skills like communication, teamwork, leadership, and time management, which are widely applicable in school, work, and life.

Yet, even when a child shows interest in a sport, parents often aren’t properly supportive. On the one hand, if you don’t engage at all with your child’s new hobby, they aren’t likely to maintain their initial passion and they might quit the sport in a matter of months. On the other hand, if you are overzealous, you might push them to the point of burnout, again inspiring them to give up the sport for a lower-pressure hobby.

So what is the right way to support kids in athletics?

Learn what you can about the sport

It’s not uncommon for kids who participate in sports to have parents who are already engaged in athletics in some way, shape, or form. If you are already a tried-and-true fan of your child’s chosen athletic pursuit—if you played when you were young or if you follow the sport at the professional level—you might not need to invest much time in this supportive step. However, if your child chooses a more obscure sport that you aren’t familiar with, you should start by learning as much as you can about it. Knowing the rules of the sport, a basic history of the sport, and a few requirements for training and playing will help you become closer with your child as they navigate their new passion. You might launch into research about the sport on your own or with your child so that you can build a foundation in the sport together.

Understand what drives your child

A child’s motivations for playing a sport will determine how they engage with the activity in the short and long term. For instance, if your kid joined the softball team because all of her friends were playing softball—and not because she was interested in the sport of desired athletic activity—then she might not feel much compulsion to excel in the pursuit. In this situation, pushing your child to train harder won’t be beneficial; it could even cause a rift in your relationship. However, if your child joined the softball team because she idolizes softball players or loves team-based competition, she might appreciate your encouragement to practice hitting balls or catching flies. Throughout your child’s sports experience, you should communicate with them about why your kid wants to play the sport, what they enjoy about the sport and more, so you have a better...

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5 Storage Secrets to Make Food Last Longer

How to Make Condiments Last

It’s frustrating to have to throw out condiments like sour cream, mayo, yogurt, and mustard because you didn’t use the entire container before it spoiled. However, you can easily combat this by changing containers as you use up the item. Using a smaller container exposes the condiment to less air—and fewer bacteria. The trick, of course, is making sure you successfully transfer every bit of mayo possible from the jar to the tiny Tupperware!

Freeze Your Bread

If you find that your bread often goes stale before you use it, slice it and store in the freezer. Separate out slices and let them sit for about five minutes at room temperature to defrost, or stick them directly in the toaster. Frozen bread is also great to use for grilled cheese sandwiches—it’s much easier to butter, and it will defrost as it cooks in the pan.

Store Dairy Properly

It’s better to store milk on an inside shelf toward the back of the refrigerator, not on the door. Why? All dairy products are very perishable. The optimal refrigeration temperature is actually just over 32°F; however, few refrigerators are ever set at or hold that low a temperature. Most home refrigerators remain around 40°F, and the temperature rises every time the door is opened. Store cheese near the bottom of the refrigerator, where temperature fluctuations are minimal.

Know Which Produce to Refrigerate

Refrigerating your produce can help it last longer, but not all produce does well in the cooler temperature. The majority of fruits and vegetables handle cold fairly well, but naturally enough, the exceptions are tropical fruits, whose cells are just not used to the cold. Bananas will suffer cell damage and release a skin-browning chemical, avocados don’t ripen when stored below 45°F, and citrus fruit will develop brown-spotted skin. These fruits, as well as squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, bell peppers, and pineapples, are best stored at 50°F—so keep them out of the fridge. Most other vegetables, including lettuce, carrots, and cabbage, will do better in your refrigerator. Potatoes, however, should be stored outside of the fridge and away from light.

Save Your Spices

Spices and dried herbs keep their flavor better if stored in a cupboard away from heat, light, and moisture, all of which impair flavor, change color, and shorten life. Make them last longer by putting half into a sealed, airtight container when you purchase them. Label the container and keep it in your dark cabinet, or better yet, your freezer. When the spice on-hand loses its aroma, replace it with some from your stash, and you’ll never have to be irritated about throwing away an...

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Can Whole-Body Vibration Training Make You Fit?

Although these rather bland-looking platforms are only recently popping up in gyms and spas, whole-body vibration training (WBVT) has been around for quite a long time. According to the BioMedical Journal, the ancient Greeks were the first to think that shaking the human body would elicit faster healing.

The history of whole-body vibration training

Ancient Grecian doctors used body vibration machines as a "therapeutic methodology" to help soldiers recover from their injuries. Their version was a bow-like wooden instrument that they would pluck strings on to create vibrations over cuts and wounds. The Greek docs observed that the vibrations allowed pus to drain from wounds more freely (yuck) while also healing the wounds faster.

In the 1860s, Swedish medical student Jonas Gustav Zander explored the connection between mechanics of the body and muscle building. He went on to establish the Therapeutic Zander Institute in Stockholm, which used his machines to help workers correct physical impairments. Zander believed vibration therapy could be a way to increase weight loss and muscle gain in his patients.

Russian athletes used whole-body vibration machines to speed up their recovery after Olympic events.

In the 1960s, Russian scientists embraced vibration therapy, dubbing it rhythmic neuromuscular stimulation. They believed that they had discovered a way to support not only muscle building but also a way to help stimulate bone regeneration. Then in 1995, the cosmonaut Valery Polyakov (the Ironman of Space Flight) lived in space for 438 days without losing (much) bone density thanks to WBVT. In fact, instead of being carried from the Soyuz spacecraft to a nearby chair, as is customary, Valery walked. Not too shabby for having been in zero gravity for nearly 15 months.

The following year, Russian athletes also started using whole-body vibration machines to speed up their recovery after Olympic events. Since then, many studies have been done on the use of WBVT. And many entrepreneurs have created devices—available at lower and lower costs—for both gym and home settings.

The big question is, just because it helped one dude in space—where gravity is lower and bones lose their density quickly—does it do anything valuable for us earthbound exercisers? Well, let's see what some of the studies say.

How does WBVT work?

If you go to a gym or spa...

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How to Self-Promote at Work Without Feeling Icky

Does the idea of having to self-promote leave you feeling like you need a shower? Sometimes, it seems showy and braggy and icky. The thought of having to do it may make your skin crawl. And yet, self-promotion is essential.

The key to promoting yourself is striking the balance between humility and hubris. You need to find ways to demonstrate confidence—in the service of creating opportunities—without seeming self-congratulatory or off-putting.

Doing great work isn’t enough

Doing great work—delivering important projects, delighting customers and clients, contributing innovative ideas—is crucial if we aspire to new challenges and opportunities at work. But these successes only serve us if the leaders and decision-makers around us have a clear understanding of what we’ve achieved and how we’ve impacted the business.

If you’re looking to get ahead at work, doing great work is only half the battle. The other half is shining the light on your achievements. And this, we accomplish through self-promotion.

Getting self-promotion wrong can have real consequences. Poorly orchestrated self-promotion can hinder your ability to grow. It limits people’s willingness to follow your leadership, to choose to collaborate with you, and to support your candidacy for roles you aspire to.

If you’re looking to get ahead at work, doing great work is only half the battle. The other half is shining the light on your achievements.

There are many strategies you can use to effectively and stealthily promote yourself—your achievements, your knowledge, your capabilities—without being off-putting. Here are my five favorite ways to self-promote without making my colleagues and superiors roll their eyes.

1. Be focused and intentional about self-promotion

Think of self-promotion as a means to an end, not a general way of being. Instead of tooting your horn at every single success (icky), identify specific achievements or successes that support a goal you’re striving to achieve.

If you’re hoping for an opportunity to take the lead on an upcoming client pitch, then choose a piece of feedback you’ve received from a client that highlights your ability to listen and respond to their needs. Make sure your boss, or the key decision-maker, sees that particular feedback.

But stay on-script! Stay focused on promoting your client attentiveness and don’t go overboard touting your graphic design or writing skills. Peers and colleagues will happily celebrate along with you in occasional moments of thoughtful self-promotion.

2. Hold others up next to you

Looking good isn't a zero-sum game—there can be lots of winners at...

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The Fascinating Physics of Figure Skating

Figure skaters not only have to perform incredible feats of human strength and agility, but they also have to push the limits of what is humanly possible while making their movements look easy. Their motions appear graceful and smooth as they hurtle their bodies through the air with nothing but the hard ice below.

As spectators, we take for granted that a figure skating routine will involve multiple jumps which incorporate triple and even quadruple spins in a single jump. Executing the perfect jump requires a precise combination of speed, force, vertical velocity, angular momentum, friction, and of course timing. Let’s break down some of these crucial pieces that go into the perfect loop, flip, salchow, axel, or lutz.

Vertical Velocity

A skater’s vertical velocity, or their speed upward into a jump, helps determine how high they can go. Their altitude in turn determines how much time they have in the air before they return back to the ground and thus how much time they have to execute a spin or spins. A skater achieves vertical velocity by extending their leg downward to push down on the ice. The ice in turn pushes back providing a force upward.

A skater’s vertical velocity, or their speed upward into a jump, helps determine how high they can go.

The vertical velocity needed to reach a certain height is the same for any skater but the force needed to reach that velocity depends on the size and weight of the skater as well as how long the force is applied to propel the skater upward. Stronger muscles are required to create stronger forces. Skaters typically launch themselves off the ice skaters around 10 miles per hour and reach heights anywhere between one and four feet.

Angular Momentum

Another fundamental physics principle on display in a figure skating jump is the law of conservation of angular momentum. The angular momentum of a skater is the product of their linear momentum and their angular velocity or their rotational speed. Angular momentum works similarly to linear momentum in that spinning (or moving) things like to keep spinning (or moving) until acted on by an outside force. In other words, a larger angular momentum allows a skater to spin faster in the air until she hits the ground.

A larger angular momentum allows a skater to spin faster in the air until she hits the ground.

You may have noticed that skaters tend to begin their jumps with their arms extended but while in the air they draw their arms in toward their body to minimize their size as much as possible. This is because angular momentum must always be conserved without that action from an outside force...

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