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Stay-At-Home Moms Fight Credit Card Bias
Tweet Share on Facebook May 23, 2012 Comment (5)While the CARD Act of 2009 was celebrated for protecting consumers, it also contained a less-discussed clause that’s now affecting stay-at-home moms (and dads): While non-working spouses could previously take out credit cards in their own names by citing household income data, the new rules, as spelled out by the Federal Reserve, require credit card companies to consider only individual income. That means anyone who doesn’t earn her own income, such as a stay-at-home mom, will have a much harder time qualifying for her own credit card.
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Behind Obama’s Financial Literacy Message
Tweet Share on Facebook May 21, 2012 Comment (2)The long-awaited financial literacy campaign from the Obama Administration is finally out, and it’s already stirring up controversy. The campaign, designed with the help of financial journalist Beth Kobliner and other members of the president’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, highlights 20 money lessons for children, broken into five different age groups. In addition to a printable poster, the campaign features an interactive website for parents and teachers.
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Behind the Spike in Seniors’ Unemployment
Tweet Share on Facebook May 16, 2012 Comment (2)In today’s story on why older Americans are so happy at work, we focus on the results of a new Charles Schwab study that suggests about one-third of 60-something workers are so content at their jobs that they don’t want to retire. In fact, three in four respondents between the ages of 50 and 69 said they are "sticking with their jobs because they want to," and not because they have to for financial reasons. That runs counter to the stereotype of older workers stuck in miserable jobs because they can’t afford to retire.
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7 Things Employers Want from New Grads
Tweet Share on Facebook May 15, 2012 Comment (9)Here’s more good news for the class of 2012: Almost nine in 10 employers say they will hire more graduates this year than last year, according to a survey of 225 employers by Millennial Branding, a generation Y research and consulting firm. But the survey results also come with a warning for new grads. Employers say they’ve been disappointed with the lack of preparation among potential hires during job interviews, and many report that they run background checks on Facebook and other social media sites.
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Does Breastfeeding Really Save Money?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 11, 2012 Comment (18)This week’s cover of Time magazine, featuring a woman breastfeeding her tall three-year-old son, launched a range of strong reactions across the blogosphere. Some supporters of attachment parenting lauded the cover as “normalizing” breastfeeding past the age of one, while others felt the defiant stance of mother and son seemed designed to spark outrage and even evoked pornography.
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Money Tips for Your First Job
Tweet Share on Facebook May 9, 2012 Comment (1)Starting a new job after graduation usually means a new boss, new tasks, and a new salary. It also means new financial challenges, as young workers figure out how to navigate the world of retirement savings, a post-work social life, and professional demands. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, this year’s class of graduations will earn a median starting salary of $42,569, up 4.5 percent from 2011. (They’ll also have an easier time landing jobs than last year’s cohort: Companies say they will hire 10.2 percent more grads from this year’s class of graduates compared to the previous year.)
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The Truth Behind 20-Somethings' Misery
Tweet Share on Facebook May 7, 2012 Comment (6)When it comes to 20-somethings and money, everyone seems to have a different opinion.
After USA Today published a story on high debt levels held by recent college graduates last month, a letter to the editor criticized the young woman featured in the story for using an iPad while shopping. “If she can barely scrape by, perhaps she could use a pad and paper and shop at a regular grocery store while she saves up and pays her bills. Why must today's youth live like they are rich when they are not?” wrote the presumably middle-aged reader.
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5 Tips for Launching a Side Business
Tweet Share on Facebook May 2, 2012 CommentWhen Calee Lee looked for e-books to read to her two young children on her Kindle, she came up short: Colorful pictures didn’t seem to come alive on the black-and-white screen, and others, especially older classics, didn’t seem to be formatted properly for the e-reader. “I said, ‘I could do better than this,’” says Lee, 29, and she did just that.
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Former Teacher Finds Success as a Coach
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2012 Comment (2)Maia Heyck-Merlin, chief talent officer at Achievement First, an educational nonprofit, noticed that her fellow educators often struggle with time management and organization. Many of them spent the vast majority of their days in the classroom with few bathroom breaks, let alone time to respond to emails from colleagues or text messages from parents. “No one was thinking about organization for people who worked in schools,” she says.
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Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?
Tweet Share on Facebook April 26, 2012 Comment (3)So just what does it take to be a billionaire these days? According to the latest list compiled by the indexing website PeekYou.com, the world’s youngest billionaires tend to either make their money in tech companies (specifically Facebook), or they inherit it from their families. In the site’s top ten list of billionaires under age 35, the top four are connected to Facebook and five come from money. The leaves one, Robert Pera, 33, founder of the wireless company Ubiquiti Networks.
