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Week of July 24 |
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Friday, July 28, 2006
Here’s to Woman Power!
“247 Biggest Money Mistakes” probably won’t be a cover line on
Cosmo any time soon. But, when they do cover finances, women’s
magazines, in general, do like to harp on what women do wrong
with their money. It’s true, we all have something to learn about
saving and spending, but just for once, let’s take a look at what
we’re doing right.
Did you know
that:
Women control 80
percent of the purchasing power in the U.S.
15 percent of
wives earn at least $5,000 more than their husbands.
Women start
businesses at twice the rate of men and pump $3.6 trillion into the
economy every year.
A woman is the
head of household and/or primary investment decision maker in 2.3
million households with total assets exceeding half a million
dollars.
Women’s stock
portfolios outperform men’s by 1.4 percent.
Companies with the highest representation
of women on their senior management teams have a 35 percent higher
return on equity and a 34 percent higher total return to
shareholders than companies with the lowest women’s representation.
In 2003, the
stock of the eight companies run by women CEO’s, as a group,
outperformed the market.
So, this
weekend, let’s all drink a collective toast to Woman Power!
Burnt Toast to Hummer
for its “Get Your Girl On” ad, showing two soccer moms acting like
“mean girls” in a playground. When one sees the other drive off in
an ordinary SUV, she goes out and buys a Hummer to one-up her rival.
Give me a break! We’ve got more sense than to spend $50,000 for a
boy toy. The ad does reinforce the first statistic above, though:
women make 80 percent of the purchasing decisions—and that includes
the family car. No wonder Hummer is trying (clumsily) to woo us.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Thursday, July 27, 2006
Two Electra-Cute Cards
Part of the appeal of celebrities is that they have
lots of dough. Advertisers and publishers use our fascination with
the glitterati to part us from our money in any number of ways, from
putting celebs on magazine covers to using them as pitchmen and
women for everything from sneakers to cosmetics. Now comes a new
wrinkle: the celebrity-branded pre-paid card. First out of the box:
Carmen Electra. My question: as beautiful as she is, why would
anyone want Carmen’s mug on the MasterCard they hand over to a
merchant or stick into an ATM machine? (I assume there’s no danger
of being “Electra-cuted”. . . ) Are we supposed to be hoping that
the glitz and glamour of her life will rub off on us—or that her
money can be accessed through the card?
On the
plus side: The card does have a direct-deposit feature, which may be
useful for those currently relying on exorbitant check-cashing
storefronts. But if you have a debit card linked to your bank
account, why pay the $9.95 activation fee, the $4 monthly
maintenance fee and other transaction fees that apply every time you
use the Electra Card?
The
Carmen Electra prepaid gift card, on the other hand, may be
something you want to consider giving a friend or family member
who’s gaga for Electra. Price: $5.95 plus the dollar amount of your
gift. The Electra Card can be used anywhere MasterCard debit cards
are accepted.
Visit
www.carmencard.com for more info on the Carmen Electra prepaid
card and
www.electragift.com to learn more about the gift card.
MasterCard is sponsoring a sweepstakes (www.carmencard.com/sweepstakes)
to promote the two cards: every time you use either one between now
and June 30 of next year, you’re automatically entered to win a
variety of prizes, including $1000 and a chance to spend a day with
the star.
Express
Yourself: This week, Advertising Age, a publication for and
about media buyers and sellers, is asking the question: “Does
advergaming aimed at children cross acceptable ethical boundaries?”
Advergames are those popular Web games found on many brand sites (Burger
King, for example), incorporating products or food items
into the play. Critics argue that this sort of entertainment
influences vulnerable preteens and their spending habits unfairly. A
new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation recorded 500 advergames on
the Web sites of 82 food brands and found that these sites attracted
12.2 million visits by kids ages 2 to 11 during the three-month
period of the study. Go to
http://adage.com/poll?poll_id=28 to take the poll and express
your opinion about this ad ploy.
For more
on celebrity salesmanship,
CLICK HERE to read “Celebrity Products Are Coming to
“Getcha, Getcha, Getcha’!” in the final issue of MAKING BREAD,
published last July.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Digging Out from Under Student Debt
Surfing around on
www.digg.com today, I found a fascinating piece written by a
graduate student buckling under the weight of her student loans. Do
you know about Digg? This site allows you, the people, to create
your own “readers’ digest” of all the news and information fit to be
read. Users submit content and vote on what’s worth featuring high
up on the site. Turns out we, the people, have a pretty good
editorial sense. If you visit, just be sure to “digg” beyond the
tech stories featured on the home page.
Anyway, back to the piece I found there. Written by Myshele Goldberg
for Alternet.org,
“The Real Tragedy of Student Debt” offers insight into one
college student’s gradual accumulation of a debt load so high she
may be sending her own children to college before she pays it off.
“As of finishing my master’s degree, my debt hovers around
$70,000—it will grow to over $100,000 by the time I pay it off. My
repayment schedule reaches into my late 40s, at $650 a month. If I
do the kind of low-paid, meaningful work I want to pursue—teaching,
writing, grassroots organizing—I will likely struggle to make each
payment,” Goldberg writes.
She
admits that much of her debt is a result of the choices she’s made:
“I attended an expensive university 3,000 miles from home. I stayed
at that school, even though I could get a cheaper education
elsewhere. I studied an impractical subject that I loved, then
continued my studies at an obscure foreign university. I wasn’t
always aware of financial consequences.” But she also points a
finger at the U.S. education system’s symbiotic relationship with
financial institutions, which are all too eager to finance degrees
for a profit.
In other countries, she points out, grants are
far more readily available to students, and, consequently,
student-loan debt is far lower than it is in the U.S. In Germany,
the average debt at graduation is $7,000, compared with $19,300 in
the U.S., she writes, and most countries in Europe require repayment
only after a graduate earns a certain salary. They also forgive
student loans after 15 to 25 years. Can you imagine? It isn’t just
in the area of education that Europe has more progressive policies;
paid maternity leave, government- sponsored child care and universal
health insurance make lives financially less burdensome for European
women.
“The
real tragedy,” Goldberg says, “is not that America’s young people
can’t afford their college education—the tragedy is that they are
told their entire lives that education is their birthright and a
chance for social mobility and then are forced to watch that
birthright crumble under the weight of unbearable debt.”
My
parents paid for my college tuition, and I realize how lucky I am
that they did. I doubt the educational system in this country will
change any time soon. For those, like Goldberg, struggling to pay
off their loans after graduation, there are some programs worth
looking into.
Americorps,
the national service network, for starters, offers members a $4,725
education award at the end of each year of service, which can be
used to repay qualified student loans.
For more leads on reducing your college debt, read the MSN Money
article “Shrinking
Student Loans with Public Service” .
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Sex in the Workplace
Career information publisher Vault, Inc. (www.vault.com),
home to industry profiles, career guides, day-in-the-life job
descriptions, a job board and much more, conducted a Workplace
Survey in May, which found that 28 percent of women prefer to work
for a male boss. The majority of the 518 male and female
respondents from employees across a range of industries said it
didn’t matter to them whether their boss was male or female. So
what’s up with that 28 percent? Aren’t they shooting themselves (and
all other women trying to get ahead) in the foot with that outmoded
attitude? Why don’t more women prefer working for a female boss?
Does sex matter in the workplace?
I’ve
worked for both men and women, and I’ve found that there are a few
key qualities that every good boss has. Intelligence, sensitivity,
leadership skills, a talent for encouraging creativity in staff, and
the ability to make the job at hand seem important and worthwhile
come to mind. Neither men nor women have cornered the market on
these attributes. There are good and bad bosses of both sexes. But I
also have to admit that there can be a refreshing lack of
gamesmanship when interacting with female supervisors or co-workers.
The same argument is often made for the benefits of all girl’s or
all boy’s schools.
Would I want to work in an all-female
office? Hardly! But let’s face it, there can occasionally be
unspoken sexual tensions between men and women in the workplace, and
perceived favoritism or the opposite can sometimes rear its head.
Despite workplace protocols and best B-school practices, office
politics, after all, is just a microcosm of the way we interact with
men and women in our personal lives. Just watch an episode of The
Office, if you don’t believe it.
As
for that 28 percent who prefer working for a man: Way back in
November 2003 MAKING BREAD magazine career coach JoAnn R. Hines (www.womeninpackaging.org)
wrote a great piece on the subject of women competing with women in
the workplace, “On the Job Etiquette: Why Can’t Women Be Nicer to
Each Other?” CLICK HERE to
download and read her advice for “What to Do and Say When You Run
into ‘Sisterly Rivalry’ or Just Plain Rudeness at the Office.”
Do
you care whether your boss is a man or a woman? E-mail me your
preference—and why you feel that way—and I’ll post your anonymous
comments here.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Monday, July 24, 2006
War Stories
Watching
refugees streaming out of Beirut on the news this weekend reminded
me of stories my mother used to tell us about her flight to safety
when the Nazis bombed Warsaw during World War II. Like today’s
Middle East refugees, on both sides, she was forced to leave her
home on a day’s notice with little more than the clothes on her
back, with only one thought in her mind: saving her life.
She
was in her early 20s when the war displaced her, making her one of
the millions of dispossessed in Europe at that time. The experience
left her stronger. No, she never stopped loving beautiful things,
like the shiny black baby grand piano she had to leave behind—but
ever after, whenever hard times came her way, she knew she would be
able to survive.
It’s painful to watch the confusion and
fear and pleading in the faces of innocent children, parents, and
the elderly in the all-too-numerous war-wracked areas of the globe
right now. What is different with today’s wars is their immediacy:
in an instant, and with nightly updates, the plight of these
refugees is broadcast around the world in real time, making all of
us witnesses to their plight. It begs the question: if we do nothing
to stop the violence, are we accomplices?
But another lesson also emerges.
Listening to sound bites from those fortunate enough to reach
safety, expressing their gratitude for simply being alive, though
they’ve left their material possessions behind, is a healthy
reminder to those of us who have never known the mass panic that war
breeds of what is truly important. Suddenly, the credit-card debt
we’ve accumulated stuffing our homes with goodies seems money ill
spent.
Read
more about the lessons my mother’s war stories taught me in “Spending
Seemed to Run in the Family, Until the Day My Father Died.”
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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If you like the blog, you’ll love the book.
For more savvy
finance advice, buy
“Making Bread: The
Ultimate Financial Guide for Women Who Need Dough,”
by Gail Harlow and Elizabeth Lewin, available on
Amazon.com and at your local bookstore |
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