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6 DIY Projects That Save Money
Tweet Share on Facebook November 29, 2011 Comment (3)As the holidays get closer, people often make time for baking cookies, creating homemade gifts, and wrapping presents. What if we took that DIY spirit one step further and delved into homemade projects that could save us money all year long?
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5 Reasons to Skip Black Friday Sales
Tweet Share on Facebook November 22, 2011 Comment (10)This year’s Black Friday deals are impressive: The coupon site Brad’s Deals reports that at Best Buy, you can get a 42-inch LCD television for $200, a Blu-ray player for $40, and a Lenovo laptop for $180. But do those discounts really justify standing in line, in the cold, for hours on Thanksgiving evening, when you could be home watching a movie instead? (This year, many stores plan to open at midnight or earlier on Thanksgiving instead of in the early morning hours on Friday.)
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How to Reclaim the Spirit of Thanksgiving
Tweet Share on Facebook November 21, 2011 Comment (7)You might have heard the disturbing news: Thanksgiving is in danger of extinction, with many big retailers planning to open their doors on Thanksgiving Day itself. As The Washington Post reported this weekend, the tradition of “Christmas creep,” or the trend toward holiday jingles and Christmas decorations making their appearance in shopping centers by early fall, has broken a new record this year. “Thanksgiving is under assault,” writes reporter Ylan Q. Mui.
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Do You Need Liability Insurance?
Tweet Share on Facebook November 15, 2011 Comment (2)After learning about why small business owners should consider forming an LLC to protect their assets, we started wondering about other ways entrepreneurs can protect themselves financially. What if the part-time knitter who starts selling her creations online gets sued by a buyer who has an allergic reaction to the wool? Or what about the science fiction writer who publishes his e-book through Amazon, only to get sued for infringing on another writer’s copyright?
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Should You Insure Your New iPhone?
Tweet Share on Facebook November 14, 2011 Comment (10)The millions of people who purchased the new iPhone 4S are toting around glass-encased mobile devices that can cost $600 or more to replace. That means one accidental plunge onto the concrete—or as one unlucky Twitter user mentioned, a ride through the laundry cycle—can be very expensive. To protect yourself from that kind of damage, should you insure your iPhone?
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How to Host Holiday Gatherings for Less
Tweet Share on Facebook November 9, 2011 CommentWhether you’re hosting your first or tenth holiday gathering, the prospect of feeding so many close friends and family members at once can be daunting—and expensive. As you start to brainstorm over the guest list and menu, here are seven ideas from Allrecipes.com on how to be a great host without blowing your budget:
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8 Ways to Create Stronger Passwords
Tweet Share on Facebook November 8, 2011 Comment (1)In the November issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows shares the disturbing story of what happened when his wife’s Gmail account got hacked earlier this year. First, she couldn’t log into her account. Then, her contacts received a troubling message that she was stranded in Madrid with no money, and she needed them to wire her funds, immediately. (It might sound like a scam, but many recipients were concerned enough to contact her husband.) Soon, she had no access to her account and all her messages—years’ worth—had been deleted.
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To Avoid Poverty, Share a Home with Family
Tweet Share on Facebook November 4, 2011 Comment (3)Moving in with family members might provide fodder for Hollywood comedies, but it turns out that for many Americans, it serves a pretty serious purpose: protection against poverty. A recent report from the Pew Research Center likens the phenomenon to an “anti-poverty program” that Americans are enacting to insulate themselves from the dark side of the Great Recession.
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What’s Your Relationship with “George”?
Tweet Share on Facebook November 2, 2011 Comment (1)As I interviewed creativity experts for my story this week on right-brain ways to manage money, I realized that I’m far from being the only person who prefers sketching with colored pencils to typing numbers into a spreadsheet. And it turns out there are a lot of money management strategies that incorporate an artistic element, which can make it easier to get organized and ultimately to make better financial choices. Some of my favorite ideas highlighted in the article include creating a video of money goals, drawing progress on piece of paper, and making spreadsheets more palatable by color-coding them.
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How to Tweet Like Dale Carnegie
Tweet Share on Facebook November 1, 2011 Comment (4)Dale Carnegie, the esteemed self-improvement guru of the last century, might never have sent a Tweet or started a Facebook page. But in the updated version of his bestseller, How to Win Friends & Influence People, he (and his co-writers) explain how he would do so, were he alive today.
