October 16, 2011
June 10, 2011
Warren Watch: Spring 2011
Hon. Elizabeth Warren, photo from Fast Company Magazine
Any reader of this blog knows that Elizabeth Warren is my heroine. She has rocked the financial world and has the “good old boys” worried enough to try to block her confirmation. She is one of my favorite boat rockers. Things in the DC hearing room got a little rocky a few weeks back when Rep. Patrick Henry, a republican from North Carolina, accused Ms. Warren of lying. The New York Times called it “a rare collapse of decorum that usually pervades discussions among even the most fervent opponents on Capitol Hill.” This all leaves me to ask the question, “What are they afraid of?” I think the answer is they are afraid of a super-intelligent driven woman who wants to fight for the wider public and make financial things understood by the average American.
A recent article in the Nation quoted a woman saying quite candidly about it all that, “the boys don’t want to have an independent woman in their clubhouse”
Alternet had a posting about the attack at the hearing entitled “Why she Scares the Hell out of Republicans” and The American Prospect features her in an article entitled, “The Strongest Progressive in the Room” by Robert Kutter.
I can’t help but reflect back on the movies Inside Job and Client 9. I look forward to seeing the HBO production of “Too Big to Fail” based on a book of the same name.
Don’t give up Elizabeth, the county is counting on you to do what it right—against all odds. You go girl!
May 1, 2011
How Long will it Last? What does it cost?
A few beauties of Mother Nature
Thinking about giant pile of old technology and what it costs can also be rather sobering. A posting from Unplggd, called The Life Expectancy of Your Home Tech, tells us the life expectancy of various technology around the house and it will make you think about saving for those unexpected things that are bound to fail with age. Aaron Crow on Wallet Pop writes an article called: 10 most overpriced products you should avoid and there are some important lessons there like how much the mark up is on things like text messaging, popcorn bought in the theater, and bottled water.
March 4, 2011
Clever Info-Graphic: The Cost of Cute
Super dog Sherlock, a friend's dog poses for the camera
A sucker for visual displays of information I enjoyed this look at what pets cost to maintain called Pet Obsessed: The Cost of Cute. It has often been said that everyone wants to be reincarnated as a pet in America, I guess this illustration might show why this is so often mentioned.
February 12, 2011
Post-Holiday Reflections: The Cheapskate Lives Next Door
Okay, the holidays are over, and many are reeling from the sting of credit card bills, for the orgy that many Americans find themselves involved with, every December. Wisebread, reports, “According to Consumer Reports, shopping with credit cards during the holidays often leads to overspending by an average of 16%. This is part of the reason that the same Consumer Reports survey revealed that 13.6 million Americans were still paying off holiday purchases from 2009 in November of 2010.”
Lifehacker has an amazing info-graphic called “Holiday Misgivings: The Surprising Personal Economics Behind Holiday Gift-giving” that shows the gift valuation gap, the gift card valuation gap, and the gift gender gap. It’s a sobering look at the consuming that has become a part of every day life with little thinking of what all this consuming means for the planet, or how many people are living without work and with more food insecurity than ever before.
If, after digesting this graphic you think you’d like to reform your ways you might go to the library and look to borrow the book The Cheapskate Next Door by Jeff Yeager, a book about living below your means that is full of colorful tales and humor about frugality.
February 2, 2011
Financial Tips for a Sound Sleep
Time to put the credit cards on ice?
My parents who spoke openly about money matters and drilled into us to think before spending. They stressed how long we had to work to buy whatever it was we desired. We were raised to think of long-term goals and not to get lured into peer pressure. Savings was stressed, as was living within our means, and thinking of those who lived with less. I was an Unicef “Trick or Treater” at a very young age. We were raised to be frugal, to stop and to think before buying, and to know the difference between and need and a want. These habits were well learned and have served me well.
For those who weren’t raised with this “how long did you work to pay for that” math drilled into you, comes Kyle Reiach’s Days to Pay site. Here you can insert your wage and figure out how long you must work, to pay for something, or click on the links and figure out how much charging something, and paying over time will cost. You may well step away from the computer and place your credit cards into the ice tray in the deep freeze.
Last week I sent this Forbes Magazine article, “Is Your Partner Cheating On You Financially? 31% Admit Money Deception” by Jenna Goudreau, around to a few friends, who had not necessarily had this experience, but who I thought should be aware how widespread it was. Most people don’t talk openly about money matters and the topic of financial deceptions.In these tight economic times it’s been harder to hide these things. One is left to think that if 31% admit to money deceptions there must be a subset to aren’t admit it. It is an important topic of conversation to share with your intimates.
January 15, 2011
The Food we Waste in America
What a heartache to consider the number of people go without adequate nutrition in our country and the amount of food that is pitched into the landfills and compost bins daily. It has been reported by the New York Times that 27% of the food in America is wasted. Europeans are much more careful about food because they shop daily and have limited space in which to store it in their smaller refrigerators, things tend not to be misplaced.
Two articles that are worth reading from the New York Times are Tera Parker-Pope’s article “From Farm to Fridge to Garbage Can” and Andrew Martin’s article ” One Country’s Table Scraps, Another Country’s Meal” written a few years past.
Just think of what we could do to stop hunger if we took even half of what we spent on wasted food and gave it instead to the local food pantry so all could eat?
November 27, 2010
Read This Before you Buy a Gift Card!
buy a gift card? not me!
Before you buy a gift card for someone this holiday season take a good look at this posting from Mintlife called The Gift Card Minefield: How to get Your Money’s Worth. As regular readers know I love the visual display of information. These card are money makers, and we spend 87 billion dollars a year on these gift cards many of which will be mislaid and never redeemed. Tread carefully down the gift card trail, there are big pot holes you should avoid.
Okay once you’ve studied that illustration get a grasp of the true size of the African continent—-enjoy.
August 21, 2010
Need a New Podcast to Listen to?
Tug on Puget Sound
For a quirky selection, more off the beaten track, tune into the shorts on The Moth podcast, or Wisconsin Public Radio’s program Here on Earth: Radio without Borders. Both feature guests and topics sure to spark a new idea and teach you something you may never have considered. Host Jean Ferraca is smart and her book I Hear Voices is worth investigating.
Word people will enjoy Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac for a daily poem and run down of what went on each day in literary history, and you will laugh and learn listening to A Way with Words about the use of language, and origins of sayings (would I be do brave as to compare their humorously entertaining banter to Tom and Ray?).
Rarely does a day go by when I don’t listen to one of the programs offered by Tom Ashbrook’s On Point Radio, Diane Rehm Show on WAMU, or Michael Krasny on KQED’s Forum.
NPR, who has generally become too mainstream for me does offers Science Friday as a separate feed, and for people interested in keeping up with technology how could you miss Internet Guru and highly entertaining Leo Laporte’s Tech Guy podcast?
Take a moment this week to try a new podcast, it will make your weekly housekeeping tasks that much more pleasant or help you stick to your exercise regime that much easily.
May 8, 2010
Nicest Gift You Can Leave Those “left behind”
Puget Sound Sunset
Although we live in a death denying culture one of the nicest things that you can do is to complete this paperwork called PUTTING YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER that details your wishes upon death. Produced by the People’s Memorial Association, the oldest continually running funeral cooperative in the country, this details your most personal end of life wishes and details that your survivors will appreciate knowing. Please if you find this form helpful please take time to send them a small donation to keep their organization providing this information.
Years back a close friend of ours died. I had nagged my friends all to sign up with the local nonprofit funeral cooperative and what did we find? A filled out forms telling us what he hadn’t been able to tell us himself, his final wishes. We were obviously suffering a great loss but this forethought and consideration was such a gift to receive.
Funeral Consumer’s Alliance is a national organization that is a watch dog group over the funeral industry and their website has lots of helpful end of life information too. They keep a hawk’s eye on the ways the ever more corporate funeral world takes advantage of grieving families and works to support the various funeral cooperatives around the country many of which are run by dedicated volunteers.
