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Week of May 15
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Friday, May 19, 2006
Top 10 Things You Can Do to
Stay Out of the Mall on Saturday
Here
are some diversionary tactics to keep you from spending money this
weekend:
1. Do some
vicarious window-shopping on the Web. Go ahead—fill up those
“shopping carts.” Just be sure to log off BEFORE you click “process
order.”
2. Clean your
closet. You may find some forgotten treasures.
3. Get out the
crayons and design some play money with your kids. Ask them: Whose
face would you put on the $20 bill?
4. Hold a
Preakness Party, and place imaginary bets on your favorite horses to
win, place or show.
5. Go to a
museum, and decide which piece of art you’d buy if you were a
multimillionaire. .
6. Take a long
walk to help you lose the lbs. you’ve gained over the winter. Think
of the money you’ll save if you can still fit into last summer’s
shorts, swimsuits and sundresses.
7. Plant a
garden—even if it’s just a windowsill garden. Cultivate a green
thumb and maybe your bank account will grow, too.
8. Go to a flea
market and search for bargains—or rent a table and sell some of your
clutter.
9. Add up all the unpaid balances on your credit
cards and organize them by interest rate, highest to lowest. Plan to
increase your payments on the highest one each month until it’s paid
off; then start on the next, and so on down the line.
10. Attend some
open houses, and start dreaming about owning your own home. Then
calculate how much longer it will take to save up a down payment.
Now aren’t you glad you didn’t go to the mall?
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Thursday, May 18, 2006
What’s on Your Grocery List?
I’m
often asked why I chose to name this women’s finance magazine
Making Bread. For me, the title doesn’t need any explanation.
“Making Bread” was the first thing that came to mind when I dreamed
up the idea for the magazine, and I went with my gut instinct.
(Perhaps I was hungry at the time.)
Thinking about it now, in hindsight, I can clearly see the
connections that my mind followed to arrive at that title. For
centuries, women, primo nurturers that we are, baked bread (after
sowing and harvesting the wheat and grinding it into flour) to
nourish our families. In some parts of the world, women still do
that. Today, we’re more likely to stop at the supermarket on our way
home from work to pick up a loaf—pausing briefly to choose between
Wonder Bread or the unsliced, crunchy kind. These days, we nurture
our families by bringing home the bread to buy the bread to feed our
loved ones. And, sometimes, on weekends when we have the time, we
still knead the dough and bake a fresh loaf, serving it piping hot
from the oven, to prove that we haven’t lost our touch.
Lately, I’ve been getting extreme
pleasure from shopping for fresh food at the supermarket. The
colors, the shapes, the smells of fruits and vegetables, the
astonishing array of choice that assaults my senses when I walk into
my local Super Fresh always take my breath away. Now that I’ve
shuttered Making Bread for lack of dough and have more time
on my hands, I’ve rediscovered the joy of cooking. Shopping for food
is the most fun I’ve had spending money in a long time. But I’m also
aware that the choices I make as I walk the aisles—Am I buying
local, organically raised produce or agribiz products? Was the food
grown here or abroad?—will affect how much money other women in
other towns and countries have to put food on the table for their
families. Make no mistake: food, or more specifically the food
chain, has economic, political and social roots and seeds.
Michael Pollan, author of the best-selling “The Botany of Desire,”
who writes the deliciously thoughtful “On
the Table”
blog for The New York Times, urges us to take our food
seriously. Think about where the food you put on your table comes
from. “Vote with your forks,” he says. As nurturers, we are
responsible for an extended (global) family, and in the midst of all
the apparent bounty we see in our stores today, there is danger of
starving the planet with the choices we make. What’s on your grocery
list?
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Avoiding Post-Collegiate Stress Syndrome
"In a funny way, at this moment in time, we're all in
the same boat. We're about to step out into the unknown ... Like
you, I'm about to leave my comfort zone and step into something
completely undiscovered.”
That’s what Today show co-anchor and soon-to-be
CBS News anchor Katie Couric told University of Oklahoma graduates
last week in her commencement speech to them. Her
cure for
post-collegiate
stress syndrome: spunk, persistence and the ability to
“stay connected to friends and family.” Add to that wise money
management, starting with your first paycheck, and you’ll build
yourself a true comfort zone: the ability to take chances when you
want to—or need to. Money buys you freedom of choice and freedom
from worry. Couric may be stepping into the unknown in terms of her
career, but her reported five-year, $14 million salary, plus bonuses
and stock options, puts her in a very comfortable “zone.”
The best graduation gift any parent can give sons and daughters
about to embark on their first job is a visit to a financial planner
to learn the basics of saving, investing and money management. To
locate an affordable financial planner, check out the Garrett
Planning Network (www.garrettplanningnetwork.com)
of financial planners who charge by the hour.
Start saving with that first paycheck, and you could be
a multimillionaire by the time you’re ready to retire. Financial
expert David Bach suggests that we all set aside a minimum of
one hour’s salary every day. Work that first hour for yourself, and
you won’t feel like a corporate slave but the CEO of a corporation
called YOU. Set up a direct deposit into your savings account with
every paycheck, and you won’t even miss the dough. Really! Look at
it as a bill from your future self to your current self, and pay
that bill first. Your future self will thank you.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Be Calculating Women!
Looking for inspiration to help you save mo’ money? There’s no
better motivation than a savings calculator to show you how fast a
little pile of dough can grow, given the “yeast” of compound
interest. Try the calculators on the following sites to see how much
you need to put away every month if you want to have a million by
retirement, enough to pay for college, or whatever other goal you
might have your mind (or heart) set on. The MyFico calculator (sixth
in the list) offers dramatic evidence of how much money a higher
credit score can save you when you borrow money:
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/savecalc.asp
http://finaid.org/calculators/
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/calcs/n_savapp/main.asp
http://www.dinkytown.net/savings.html
http://home.ingdirect.com/privacy/privacy.asp?s=Calculators
http://www.myfico.com/myfico/CreditCentral/LoanRates.asp
Lori, a Fresh Bread Money Blog reader, wrote in today, asking about
the ING Direct mortgage contest we mentioned in our
April 3 blog entry, “ Contests We Love.”
She wanted to know what the deadline is. ING tells me it’s May 31,
so those of you who are interested still have time to compete for
$15,000 in mortgage payments. Call
1-800-ING-DIRECT for more information. Lori also recommends a
contest you’ll find on
www.writingcompetition.com. First prize: $4,000. At 250 words
(the length you’re required to write), that’s $16 a word. More than
even a best-selling writer might earn! Using one of the calculators
above, I find that if you invest that $4,000 in a CD or mutual fund
paying 8 percent, you’ll end up with $18,643.88 in 20 years, more
than quadrupling your savings.
Doing some emotional calculations, I’m prompted to mention this
deficit: The last episode of The West Wing aired on Sunday
night. As President Bartlett (Martin Sheen) flew off into the
sunset, I and millions of other Liberals (that dreaded “L” word)
were left without even a fictional Administration to represent our
views. Time for us to turn our efforts to voting in a new cast of
characters to star in that soap opera called Capitol Hill
come November.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Monday, May 15, 2006
Are Women the More Generous Sex?
A
couple of years ago, we published an article about women and
philanthropy that posed the question, “Are Women the More Generous
Sex?” The answer, it turns out, is that while men give more money,
women give more of their disposable income, according to one expert.
Philanthropy, as the article, written by Allison Acken, author of
“It’s
Only Money: A Primer for Women,” points out, isn’t just for
millionaires writing big checks to their favorite causes. It’s the
dollar you hand to the homeless person in the street, the dollars
you spend to buy Girl Scout cookies, and the $25 check you sent to
Katrina relief.
The
experts quoted in that article, which also profiles four remarkable
women who’ve found innovative ways to incorporate giving into their
daily living, recommend that you consolidate your giving if you want
to make a difference. “Focus your giving. Move from small gifts of
$25. Put your money together,” says philanthropist Jean Fairfax.
Read the article, (it also outlines what you get for giving in terms
of tax advantages), and the rest of that issue by
CLICKING HERE.
Then head on over to
www.glamour.com to check out “7 Ways to Help Women in Need,”
listing seven great charities whose missions aid women around the
world, in Glamour magazine’s latest issue.
Watercooler topic for the day:
Should ABC let President Bush bump Oprah tonight? Oprah’s been
publicizing her “Legends’ Ball” special, honoring the women who’ve
inspired her, originally scheduled to air at 8 P.M. (ET) tonight,
for more than a week. She even flew to New York to plug it on The
View. Sure, what the President has to say about immigration
reform tonight is important, but in this age of all news all the
time, where we can get our news where and when we want it, do
all of the networks
really have to carry all of his speeches?
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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