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Week
of May 22 |
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Friday, May 26, 2006
A Shopgirl’s Best Friends
Memorial Day weekend traditionally rings in the season
of fun in the sun, and here on the East Coast the weather is
cooperating. Memorial Day weekend is also known for the great sales
stores offer to lure customers inside their doors. I’ve been
shopping for house paint (not quite my idea of fun in the sun, but
my house needs a makeover). So, naturally, my ears perked up when I
heard that Home Depot (www.homedepot.com)
is offering $20 off each 5-gallon can of Behr paint purchased this
weekend. The danger with holiday weekend sales is that they’ll tempt
you to spend money on things you don’t really need. If you find
yourself reaching for your wallet in a moment of passing insanity,
try keeping “Making Bread’s List of Six Questions to Ask Before You
Spend a Dime” in your wallet:
1. Do I need this or want this?
2. What won’t I be able to buy if I spend my
money on this now?
3. What will I be able to buy later if I don’t
spend this money now?
4. Would I buy this if I were paying cash, instead of
using a credit card?
5. How much interest would this money earn for me if I
put it in the bank, instead?
6. Is there a cheaper alternative?
To ensure that you’re really getting the best price
available on specific items, log onto one of the following
comparison-shopping sites before you spend a dime, on or off line.
Brilliant Shopper (www.Brilliantshopper.com)
Dealio (www.dealio.com)
FatWallet (www.fatwallet.com)
Froogle (www.froogle.com)
NexTag (www.nextag.com)
PriceGrabber (www.pricegrabber.com)
PriceScan.com (www.pricescan.com)
Pronto (www.pronto.com)
Shop (www.shop.com)
ShopLocal (www.shoplocal.com)
Shopping (www.shopping.com)
Shopzilla (www.shopzilla.com)
Often, though, the best deals can be found in small mom-and-pop
stores not listed on those high-tech comparison-shopping sites. To
compete with the big-box retailers, they have to price aggressively.
I was browsing a local antiques shop last week just for fun and saw
two charming, hand-painted, marble-top side tables, marked down to
$300 for the pair. I didn’t buy them because I didn’t need them, but
I thought what a good deal they would be for someone just starting
out, furnishing a new home.
For others, price isn’t everything and the ultimate
shopping bible is Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.com),
which tells you where you’ll get the biggest bang for your bucks.
Those people will be happy to hear that Consumers Union, the company
that publishes Consumer Reports, is planning to launch a new
magazine called ShopSmart this summer. Aimed at women, it
promises to do the research for you and identify the "best of the
best" for readers. Look for it on newsstands August 1.
Despite that great old Billie Holiday
song, some things are never for sale. They’re priceless, because
they’re given freely. Whatever you do this weekend, spread a little
(free) love around!
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Thursday, May 25, 2006
85 Broads You Should Get to
Know
Whether you’re just starting out in your career, stuck in a job that
hasn’t offered you satisfaction or creative stimulation in years, or
getting ready to jump back into the professional fray after raising
your kids, you’ll want to get to know the exceptional women profiled
in Janet Hanson’s book “More Than 85 Broads: Women Making Career
Choices, Taking Risks, and Defining Success on Their Own Terms.”
The
title comes from a support and mentoring group founded by former
Goldman Sachs employee Hanson to network with other Goldman Sachs
women after she left the company. (85 Broad is the company’s
Manhattan address.) In the book, Hanson tells the stories of this
extraordinary group of women whom she describes as trailblazers,
visionaries, givers, adventurers, entrepreneurs, survivors,
ambassadors, parents and rockets. Last year Hanson’s group, 85
Broads, organized an international “Buycott” to protest “the glacial
pace of change for working women around the world” and remind
corporate America of women’s economic power. That should give you
some idea of the feisty nature of these broads.
Their
stories are our stories: ordinary stories of breast cancer, divorce,
bankruptcy, getting fired, balancing work and family. Yet they’ve
found ways to survive and succeed. They are extraordinary, but they
are also us—women in all our natural, tenacious, inventive,
never-say- die glory. Go to
http://www.morethan85broads.com/book to download an excerpt or
order the book.
Contest Worth Entering:
Just in time for your summer grilling pleasure, the Food Network is
sponsoring the “Ultimate BBQ Sweepstakes.” Enter once a day until
June 12 by
CLICKING HERE
for a chance to win a complete backyard makeover and outdoor
kitchen. They should have called it the
Ultimate BBQ Sweep-Steaks!
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Note to Self: Get My Financial
Records Organized!
I’ve been doing some much needed spring cleaning this
week, and it’s gotten me thinking about the mess my financial
records are in. I’m a pack rat who keeps
everything, convinced
that I might need it someday. What’s worse: I’m not an organized
pack rat, so even if I did need that car title, insurance policy or
cancelled check from two years ago, I probably couldn’t find it. Not
on the first try anyway.
If you’re like me, consider putting this on your to-do
list for the coming long weekend: Note to self: get my financial
records organized!!! (I need at least three exclamation points
to motivate myself.) For a good checklist, read author David Bach’s
(“The Automatic Millionaire”) fine column on the subject at
http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/article/millionaire/3295.
You never know what you might find as you clean out your
files. In my manic bout of spring cleaning this week, I unearthed a
thank you card from my late mother. She had sent it to me in the
spring of 1995, many years before she died, and I’d tucked it away,
thinking I might want to read it again someday. In it, she’d tucked
a newspaper clipping that contained an excerpt from the book
“Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss,” by Hope Edelman. It
reads, in part: “I am fooling myself when I say my mother exists now
only in the photograph on my bulletin board or in the outline of my
hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on
beneath everything I do. Her presence influenced who I was, and her
absence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those
who leave us as they are by those who stay.”
How did my mother know that someday I might need to be
reminded of that fact? I’m so glad that I am a pack rat.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Life Lessons
Today is the
anniversary of my mother’s death. “Marry a wealthy man,” was the
extent of her financial advice to me, as I’ve written in my book
“Making Bread: The Ultimate Financial Guide for Women Who Need
Dough.” What she didn’t teach me in terms of money
management skills, though, she more than made up for in life skills.
A warm, generous woman, she knew how to live richly and to give all
of herself—heart, mind and soul—in every encounter she had with
others. What she didn’t teach me in money management skills, she
more than made up for by showing me how to be an independent woman
of the world.
Oddly enough, when she did die, leaving me executor of her estate,
tasked with selling her house, she taught me one last very practical
lesson: how to place an accurate value on material things. For more
on that lesson, read
“How Do You Put a Price on the House You Grew Up In.”
R.I. P. Nina Blaha Newhart.
An
immigrant who was helped by the kindness of others many times in her
life, my mother believed in giving back. She made a career of
volunteering her time to the American Red Cross. New York Times
columnist Nicholas Kristof
suggests two life-altering volunteer opportunities in his column
today,
“The Drumroll, Please,” in which he also announces the
winner of his “Win a Trip” essay contest, created with the purpose
of selecting a university student to accompany him on a reporting
trip to Africa. “For all the rest of you who applied for my contest,
see if you can't work out your own trips. Or take a year off before
heading to college or into a job,” writes Kristof. “In the 21st
century, you can't call yourself educated if you don't understand
how the other half lives—and you don't get that understanding in a
classroom. So do something about your educational shortcomings: fly
to Bangkok.”
Visit
www.41naa.org and
www.uddami.org/newlight
for more information on those volunteer opportunities. And check out
the winning essay by 23-year-old graduate student Casey Parks, as
well as 12 other finalists, at
http://nytimes.com/marketing/winatrip/
Parks
mentions her mother in her winning essay: “Growing
up poor, I saw my mother skip meals,” she writes. “I saw my father
pawn everything he loved. I saw our cars repossessed. ….
The older I get, though, the more I
appreciate not having money.” Her goal in telling stories through a
career in journalism: “Reaching outside of myself, to break people's
hearts so adeptly that they move into action.” I suspect she will
succeed.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Monday, May 22, 2006
Have Your Cake &
Eat It, Too!
We
had a sweet surprise yesterday: a note from a “breadwinner who bakes
bread.” Surfing the Web for bread magazines, Marcy Goldman stumbled
upon www.makingbreadmagazine.com and found the financial info here
as useful as, well, as yeast in a bread recipe. “Just the recipe I
need,” she writes.
Marcy Goldman is a professional baker, pastry chef and author of
several cookbooks, including the “A Treasury of Jewish Holiday
Baking” and the forthcoming “A Passion for Baking.” Visit her at
www.betterbaking.com, where you’ll find recipes (available at
$1.99 a pop), as well as engaging personal essays and stories to
read while your bread rises. A free membership is available, which
includes a newsletter and one free recipe per month. Several of
Goldman’s classic recipes are accessible at no charge at this link:
http://www.betterbaking.com/viewArticle.php?article_id=42
This month’s recipes on Goldman’s site
are inspired by one of my favorite authors, Jane Austen. The subtext
of her books is always money. Goldman “salutes the baking goddesses
among us…” and remembers Jane in “tea, crumpets and more.” If you
belong to a book club, why not pick an Austen novel to read, then
discuss it over tea served with one of these sweet treats: Mr.
Darcy’s Wheaten Current Scones (and Clementine Marmalade), Port Wine
Dipping Cookies, Blueberry Lemon Pound Cake, or Regency Madeira
Cake. I personally can’t wait to try the Almond Cinnamon Pull Apart
Pastries. Too heck with the calories— sometimes a girl’s just gotta
have her cake and eat it, too!
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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