Alpha Consumer
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Creative Ways to Combine Work & Family
Continue reading… 8 CommentsSharon Reed Abboud, author of All Moms Work: Short-Term Career Strategies for Long-Range Success, writes about what US News calls "the new mommy track," or the trend towards mothers finding creative ways of combining work and family after their children are born. Abboud says telecommuting, freelancing, and owning your own business are all ways to make it possible.
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Donald Trump: How He Bounces Back
Continue reading… 16 CommentsAs The New York Post points out, last week was very bad for Donald Trump. His magazine, Trump, was cancelled, and a judge rejected his claims that the book Trump Nation defames him by questioning his net worth.
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Kathy Davis on Flourishing Amid Recession
Continue reading… 0 CommentsKathy Davis, the designer and author of Scatter Joy: Living, Giving and Creating a Life You Love, says that the toughest times can serve as inspiration for pursuing business dreams. She also shares her own money-saving, and spending, tips.
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How to Spend Like a Frugal Millionaire
Continue reading… 25 CommentsToday’s guest post comes from Jeff Lehman, author of The Frugal Millionaires.
Saving thousands while still spending.
Millionaires make up just 2 percent of the population. They get a bad rap during recessions for being wasteful with their money and are frequently used as examples of excess. It’s the millionaires that you don’t see that you can learn from in times like these. I call them the frugal millionaires and interviewed 70 of them to uncover ways we can all be smarter with money.
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Should First Time Home Buyers Get Counseling?
Continue reading… 7 CommentsSusan Keating, president of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, thinks that all first-time home buyers, along with anyone else taking on a non-traditional mortgage, should be required to take a financial counseling class. That means that someone like me, who is considering buying her first home, would need to sign up for a lesson on how mortgages work before the big move-in day.
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Happy with Less
Continue reading… 2 CommentsWhen I wrote about the high material expectations of 20-somethings, I was intrigued by the comment from Jae Jimenez, a 26-year-old who lives in Brooklyn. He and his wife live in a two-bedroom apartment with their 10-month-old daughter Ava. Instead of wishing he could afford a big house for his family, he said that he's content, and grateful, for what he has.
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Saving Money, with Help from the Government
Continue reading… 4 CommentsFollowing up on yesterday's post on whether saving money is a luxury, I also spoke with Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, director of the John Templeton Center for Thrift and Generosity at the Institute for American Values. She says that while it is, of course, harder for lower-income groups to save money, it's still possible, and the government could do a lot to make it easier. For example, she thinks that state lotteries undermine people's efforts to save. If people put that $5 a week into a savings account instead of a lottery ticket, they could start to build a nest egg.
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Is Saving Money a Luxury?
Continue reading… 4 CommentsThere has been much made of the fact that the U.S. personal savings rate has inched upwards as the recession continues. In the first quarter of 2009, it hit 4.2 percent, its highest level since 1998. But who, exactly, is able to save more money? Probably not those who lost their jobs, or those who had been struggling to make ends meet even before the recession began. Because the government doesn't collect the savings data based on income levels, there is no way to know whether it's the upper-income folks who are driving that uptick.
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Save Money By Using Your Computer as a Phone
Continue reading… 6 CommentsToday's guest post comes from Julie Trade Levitch, a freelance writer based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
With consumers and businesses making more long distance phone calls than ever before, the need for reasonably, reliable phone service has never been in greater demand. Fortunately, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology that enables phone calls to be made over the Internet has dramatically reduced the price for dialing long distance. However, with a growing number of VoIP service providers offering a variety of services, it can require a certain amount of research to determine which option is the right fit for your specific needs.
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Senate Passes Credit Card Bill
Continue reading… 10 CommentsThe Senate approved the credit card bill today, which means President Obama will likely sign it into law as soon as the House and Senate reconcile their two versions of the legislation. Almost immediately, the American Bankers Association expressed its dismay:
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"Active Savers" Start Early and Often
Continue reading… 2 CommentsA new survey released by HSBC Direct today found that all consumers are not created equal. We can be divided into "active savers" and "everyone else."
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Audio: Decoding the Credit Card Bill
Continue reading… 2 CommentsOver the weekend, I spoke with WTOP in Washington about how the new credit card legislation will affect cardholders. The changes include larger font for disclosure statements, restrictions on when interest rates can go up, and more warning before such a rate change goes into effect. The Senate will be voting on its version of the bill today.
How The New Credit Card Legislation Will Affect You
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First Time Home Buyers Hit Some Snags
Continue reading… 2 CommentsThe adventures of a first-time home buyer continues.
My house hunting urge usually kicks in strongly on Sunday mornings, when my husband likes to watch Sunday morning talk shows but I’d prefer to read or work at my desk. Our one-bedroom apartment, with the living room that also serves as our dining area and study, doesn’t make it easy for us to do different things at the same time, especially when one is loud. I start imagining how nice life would be if we had a bigger place -- one with a separate study, separate living room, and separate kitchen.
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Students Sue Over Inauguration Celebration
Continue reading… 0 CommentsAs I first reported back in January (because I happened to be having drinks at the same hotel as these college students on Inauguration Eve), some Inauguration visitors felt deceived by those organizing events. The Presidential Youth Inaugural Conference collected up to $2,900 from thousands of high school and college students for four days of lectures and events, some with high-profile politicians such as Colin Powell and Al Gore. But many students felt like they were misled by false advertising.
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Why the Credit Card Legislation Should Pass
Continue reading… 18 CommentsOver the past two years, lawmakers have debated all kinds of new regulations for the credit card industry, with the goal of addressing skyrocketing consumer debt and the fact that many consumers say they feel deceived by surprise interest rate hikes and fees on their cards. The bill that the Senate could vote on today, as well as the bill passed by the House last week, stand out for their focus on transparency instead of outright caps or limits on what card companies can do. (Proposals to cap interest rates were defeated.)
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If You Don’t Vote, You Still Vote
Continue reading… 1 CommentToday's guest post comes from Odysseas Papadimitriou, founder of Evolution Finance, which publishes the Wallet Blog:
After American Idol, you have two hours to cast your vote for your favorite contestant. It’s up to you to decide who stays and who goes. The board of homeowners in your community doesn’t like the tree you’ve planted in your front yard? When it’s put on the table, you can vote to keep your tree. You don’t like the way your county’s being run, get down to the polls and pick a name. Vote. It’s a democracy. As the old saying goes, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.
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Suze Orman on Whether to Buy That House
Continue reading… 20 CommentsBefore interviewing Suze Orman last week, I asked my husband for any ideas for questions to ask her. He suggested I ask how a 30-something couple could decide whether or not they could afford to buy a house, and how expensive that house could be. (A question that serves our own self-interest, since we are that couple shopping for our first house.) I managed to squeeze the question into our conversation.
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How to Deal with "Balance Chasers"
Continue reading… 4 CommentsToday's guest post comes from Jim Wang, a personal finance blogger at Bargaineering.com.
It's not easy being a credit card company these days. Between the government tightening the rules on what credit cards can do and the economy pushing so many consumers into defaulting on their debts, credit card companies are scrambling to reduce their risk and make it to the other side of this recession. The easiest way for credit cards to reduce their risk is to lower credit limits as quickly as they can. Unfortunately, this has a negative effect on consumers like us and their latest tactic, balance chasing, is especially painful. -
Audio: How to Donate to Charity for Free
Continue reading… 1 CommentOver the weekend, I spoke with WTOP in Washington about how to give to charity during these tough times. When everyone's cutting their budget -- and charities need more help than ever -- how can we be generous? It turns out there are ways to do it without spending extra money. For example, consider giving away used clothes or books, or signing up to be an organ donor. You can also learn more about the causes that you already give to, in order to become a more effective giver.
How to Donate to Charity for Free
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Decoding the Mysterious Mortgage Points Game
Continue reading… 19 CommentsMy husband and I are in the process of buying our first house. The first step, our real estate agent told us, was to get pre-approved for a mortgage. That way, once we find a house that we like and want to make an offer, the sellers will take us seriously.
