Women have — for generations — had the stigma of being bad with money. Lucy begged Ricky for her allowance. Carrie Bradshaw blew her retirement fund on shoes. Even now, many of us can name at least one girlfriend who splits a purchase between cash and credit so she doesn’t have to own up to the cost to her spouse.
Women are getting a bad wrap. These days, more and more of us are taking charge when it comes to our family’s money. At the end of last year, a study by FindLaw.com found that 37 percent of married women between the ages of 18 – 34 handle all of the household finances, compared to 30 percent of married men. In a 2006 study by Money magazine, 60 percent of women said they’re responsible for budgeting, bill paying, and day-to-day spending in their households. More…
When I was in cooking school, the instructors made a point that when restaurants want to boost their margins, they cook omelettes, crepes and the like – made with cheap ingredients like eggs and flour. In other words: Brunch. So last week, this post by Eric Wahlgren at DailyFinance caught my eye. Wahlgren reports that brunch at restaurants is up 8.2% for the year, while traffic was actually down 1% for breakfast, 2% for lunch and 4% for dinner.
Brunch has always been a recession-friendly meal, even when we weren’t in a recession. Not only is it typically inexpensive – you can take your family out to brunch for half the cost of going out to dinner, and solicit less glares over your high chair, to boot – but, as the name implies, it combines two meals into one, lowering the strain on your wallet even further.
More…
Did you know that the average American household spends a whopping $2,200 on electricity each year? Using a power monitor can slash your bill by nearly 20%. Watch the video below to see how much I was able to save on my electricity bill by using one.
Question: My wife’s birthday is coming up and she asked that I donate to a charity in her name instead of buying a gift. How can I be sure that the charity I choose is legitimate?
-Jack, Connecticut
Answer: Despite tough economic times, Americans are still finding ways to donate to charity. According to the Giving USA Foundation’s Annual Report on Philanthropy, Americans donated $229.3 billion in 2008.
Unfortunately though, there are a number of false charities looking to capitalize on the good nature of those looking to donate their hard earned cash. Thankfully, there are websites out there designed to help you vet charities you’re considering donating to. Here are a few of my favorites:
Charity Navigator: An independent charity evaluator, Charity Navigator offers information on over 5,400 charities in the United States. Charity Navigator assesses charities based on two factors: how responsibly it functions from day to day and how they expect the charity to be able to sustain their programs in the future.
Guidestar: Guidestar combines information provided by the actual charities with data from several other sources. More…
Photo by Gil Vaknin
If you lost a job, how long would your nest egg hold out? For six in 10 Americans, the frightening answer is less than 90 days. For four in 10 it’s an even more frightening less than 30 days.
And how would your family fare in the process? That’s the question posed by a prime-time special from the folks at Sesame Workshop in collaboration with David Letterman’s company Worldwide Pants and Lookalike Productions. Families Stand Together, hosted by the husband and wife team of Al Roker and Deborah Roberts – in which I was fortunate to play a role — airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. on PBS stations across the country and will be available at SesameWorkshop.org thereafter. It takes a look at the experiences of five families who have experienced job loss or other economic setbacks. More…
