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Week of September 11 |
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Friday, September 15, 2005
Feel Like a School Girl Again!
In our book “Making Bread: The Ultimate
Financial Guide for Women Who Need Dough,” financial planner
Elizabeth Lewin and I point out three ways women can “watch their
financial figures”: ask for a raise on the first job offer you get;
start saving with your first paycheck, and if you don’t have a
college degree, get one. Doing so can increase your lifetime
earnings by $600,000.
It’s never too late to do so, either. Elin Danien is
proof of that. This feisty lady, having carved out a successful
business career for herself even without a degree, went back to
school for one at age 46. She found the experience so life-affirming
that she wanted other midlife women to have the same opportunity and
founded a scholarship fund at the University of Pennsylvania to help
them get it. “Bread Upon the Waters” has helped dozens of women get
a degree and improve their earning power.
CLICK
HERE to find out more about this wonderful program.
Many other programs cater to midlife
women seeking to return to school; there is a list in the
“Making
Bread” book.
Buy it to read more about them. One is the Talbot’s
Women’s Scholarship Fund, which awards $100,000 in scholarships “to
women determined to finally get that college degree.” The fund is
taking applicants for the 2007 school year now, and only the first
1000 will be considered. If you’re looking for cash to pay your
tuition,
CLICK
HERE for eligibility requirements and an application ASAP.
Read more about Elin Danien and her Bread Upon the
Waters program in our May/June ’04 issue,
downloadable here, where
you’ll also find a financial makeover with a happy ending, tips for
picking the perfect financial adviser for you, and, because one is
the loneliest number—in your bank account—“six smart money moves for
single women.”
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Thursday, September 14, 2005
$ Sign of the Times
“Here & Now,”
the latest edition of Monopoly, the game that gave many of us our
first taste of the power of money and the thrill of property
ownership, features a few updates. For starters, five branded
tokens—representing McDonald’s, Starbucks, New Balance running
shoes, the Toyota Prius, and a Motorola RAZR cell phone—replace
generic ones. The companies did not pay for placement, Hasbro, the
game’s manufacturer, assures us; they were chosen as a reflection of
our pop culture, and I can’t think of five better tokens of our pop
values. The traditional battleship token has been dry-docked for a
speedy jet; a Labradoodle replaces the Scottish terrier; and a
laptop computer token has been added.
New property landmarks were selected
based on the results of an online poll in which three million
consumers picked their favorites. As a result, New York City’s Times
Square bumps Atlantic City’s Boardwalk as the highest rent property
space, Other new landmark sites include the White House (I didn’t
know it was for sale!), Disney World, Texas Stadium and Chicago’s
Wrigley Field.
Perhaps most telling in these inflationary times, players collect
$2 million instead of a puny $200 by passing Go; and the game’s
Community Chest cards feature high-cash payouts, including the
chance to win $100,000 from a reality TV show, instead of a paltry
$10 for winning a beauty contest. And, in the UK edition of
“Here & Now,” plastic replaces cash: players use a mock Visa debit
card and keep track of expenses on a handheld electronic device. Now
that truly is a $ sign of the times.
Touted on
www.monopoly.com as “a modern makeover for today’s would-be
billionaires,” the new edition, priced at $29.99, appears in stores
today. The classic Monopoly is still available. Unfortunately,
inflation hasn’t inflated its value. Vintage editions can be found
for as little as $3.95 for a 1936 edition on eBay.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Wednesday, September 13, 2005
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Epicurious.com, the Web site for “people who love to eat,” is
sponsoring a series of charity dinners called “Wine. Dine. Donate.”
Here’s the scoop: Four gourmet dinners are scheduled to be held at
restaurants around the country: at Michael Mina in San Francisco on
Sept. 18, at Via Matta in Boston on Oct. 3, at Custom House in
Chicago on Oct. 24, and at Abacus in Dallas on Nov. 12, each hosted
by the restaurant’s chef and Tanya Steel, the editor of Epicurious.
Tickets range in price from $125 to $200 per person, but a
significant portion of the proceeds goes to
Second Harvest, a
national food bank, which last year
provided food
assistance
to more
than 25 million low-income people, including more than nine million
children and nearly three million seniors.
If you don’t live in one of the four host
cities, plan a Wine. Dine. Donate party in your own dining room,
using the menus, chef recipes and wine recommendations provided on
Epicurious.com, and ask your guests to contribute to the cause. The
site even has downloadable, printable invitations and place cards to
help you make your charity dinner a smashing success. Share your
party-planning tips and experiences on the
“Wine.
Dine. Donate” forum, and brag about how much dough
you raised with your event. Each month the “ hostess with the
mostest” donations will be featured on Epicurious.
CLICK HERE to download the Host Kit (found under “The
Tools”) and learn more about this entertaining way to raise money
for those less fortunate than you. While you’re on the site, check
out the Tanya Steel’s blog,
Epi-Log,
where an interesting little tempest in a teapot was brewing a few
days ago, with readers debating one another about how difficult it
might be to live on $62 worth of groceries a week.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Tuesday, September 12, 2005
True Confessions
Walking up Sixth Avenue, heading to my appointment in New York
yesterday, I passed the Fashion Tents at Bryant Park. Paparazzi
lined the entrance, seeking out celebrities, like heat-seeking
missiles, with their camera lenses. Vanity Fair editor Graydon
Carter stood on the sidewalk, looking ultra elegant, waiting for
someone. Writer Fran Lebowitz strode by in her signature tailored
pants suit. It was the right place to be for anyone who cared what
the very wealthy will be wearing next spring.
Putting it all in perspective, Karen Stuckey, a Wal-Mart senior vice
president, was quoted in The New York Times, stating the
obvious: “Not everyone is in New York. Fashion is not just for a
chosen few who have front-row seats in some elite tent somewhere.”
Calling it “the democratization of fashion,” Wal-Mart held a show of
its own a day before the official start of Fashion Week in Times
Square last week, featuring fall duds, all priced under $100.
There’s no doubt the Wal-Mart customer base is large and growing
larger by the minute and that it is underserved by the fashion
industry and fashion magazines in general. True fashion, the kind
seen on the runways this week in New York, has become wearable art.
It’s tempting to succumb to its allure. But spending money on things
that have a short shelf life is not fashionable. That’s a lesson I’m
still learning. Yesterday, I was wearing a Missoni dress that I
shouldn’t have splurged on. Its purchase price could have been
earning stylish interest in some savings account somewhere.
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow |
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Monday, September 11, 2005
Our National Case of Survivor Guilt
I was sitting at my desk on the 22nd
floor of an office building in Philadelphia when American Airlines’
Flight 11 flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on
Sept. 11, 2001. Word spread quickly in the office that a plane had
hit the Trade Center, and soon the entire office was crowded around
a small TV set. We watched in horror as first one, then the other
tower collapsed in front of our eyes. We were sent home that day,
and walking the streets, I saw the same dazed, shocked, scared,
angry expression on the faces of all the other office workers
heading home—some running into their banks to withdraw cash, not
sure what might happen next.
Five years later, we still feel the
financial ramifications of 9-11, our economy stressed by the costs of
homeland security, a misplaced war, and soaring oil prices. We all
feel an uneasy vulnerability as we try to cope with a national case
of survivor guilt that was born that day.
But life goes on: I read in The
New York Times this weekend that the former chef of
the Trade Center’s famed Windows on the World restaurant, who by
lucky happenstance wasn’t in his kitchen that morning, is opening a
new restaurant in New York this fall. I have an appointment in
Manhattan today, and as I pass strangers on the streets of the city
whose diversity and energy I love so much I know I we will exchange
glances, silently honoring the memory of 2,973 other strangers who
died five years ago today in New York, Washington, D.C. and
Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Below are three articles that were
published on this Web site during the weeks and months following the
attacks. The advice and reflections they contain still ring true
today.
Let Us Never Forget the
Cloudless Autumn Day That Taught Us
What Really Matters:
A Mother Recalls the Anguish of Being
Separated from Her
Daughter During Those First
Terrifying Moments of 9-11
Hard
Lessons of September 11
Millions of People Are Asking: What Would My Family Do Without
Me?’
Protect the People You Love with This Financial Safety Net
Will We Ever Feel Safe Again?
Expert Advice on How to Handle Our High Anxiety
After the September 11 Attacks
Prosper & enjoy,
Gail Harlow
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Week of September 4 |
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Thrifty Business
The
world’s second wealthiest man, Warren Buffett, who recently made the
largest charitable donation in history by pledging $37.4 billion to
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a handful of other
charities, is now auctioning off his 2001 Lincoln Town Car on eBay.
Proceeds will go to Girls, Inc., a youth group his family has
supported over the years. As a bonus, Buffett is throwing in his
vanity license plate, “THRIFTY,” with the car.
That
plate drives home a priceless message: It’s not how much you earn
but how much you spend that counts. Like the everyday millionaires
profiled in the 1996 book
“The Millionaire Next Door,” this billionaire is well known
for running his daily life like a thrifty business, reserving
riskier behavior for his investment strategies.
His
Town Car is scheduled to go up for auction on eBay on Sept. 12.
Unless you’re looking for a huge tax write-off, the thrifty thing to
do is buy your next car from a used-car lot closer to home.
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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