Family & Friends
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…
Elmo and I joined Bob Shieffer on Washington’s Unplugged a few days ago to talk about our PBS special, Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times. You can catch it on Wednesday, September 9th at 8pm EST. In meantime, check out our chat with Bob:
Watch CBS Videos Online
A confession: I am one of those parents guilty of not always giving my kids their allowances. I know the disturbing lesson this teaches them — that when they grow up and eventually have bills and debts of their own they really don’t have to pay them on time. They can slide. Little will happen. Of course, when the mortgage or utility company and not your teens are the creditor, that’s absolutely not the case.
For the past two years, I have “promised” that this year will be different. It hasn’t been. Instead, there will come a week when one of my kids (or both) will say, Mom, you owe me 4 (or 5 or 7) weeks allowance. And not knowing if they are right or — perhaps — giving themselves the benefit of the doubt (that’s parental guilt working in their favor) — I pay up. More…
This week pirates invaded my town. Trust me though; this isn’t as scary, or as strange, as it sounds. Every summer, Alexandria Bay, my small, tourist town in the summertime paradise known as the Thousand Islands (read the NY Times story on the area here), hosts one of the country’s oldest pirate festivals. For ten days, pirate invasions, pirate parades, and skits to reenact the antics of Bill Johnston (seen with me in the photo at left)-an actual pirate who hid from authorities in a cave in one of the Thousand Islands for almost a year- entertain thousands of tourists.
But what does a pirate festival have to do with money? Well, in a word, lots. For my town, this festival is a major economic driver of an economy that relies, for the most part, on income generated during the summer months. While people from all over attend Bill Johnston’s Pirate Days, this year, many people from not-so-far-away see the festival as the perfect opportunity for entertainment while on a “staycation.”
“Staycation”, seems to be the buzzword of the summer. A staycation is defined (yes, I said defined…staycations have become so popular, that they now have their own dictionary entry) as a vacation where one takes time off at or close to home. According to a recent poll by Harris Interactive, almost 60% of Americans say they are looking for ways to find less-expensive activities to fill up their summer days. Nearly 50% of survey participants said they’d take vacations closer to home.
In an economic climate where everyone’s trying to save a little more, staycations are a chance to take a break from the everyday, without spending a bundle of money. If you’ve yet to take a staycation this summer, there’s still time. Here are some tips for finding cheap fun that’s close to home:
Find a Festival: Visit Festivals.com, where you can search for festivals in your area by city or state, many of which are low-cost or even free.
Fun at the Fair: There are very few places where you can eat a deep fried Oreo, take in a concert by a big-name entertainer and marvel at a sculpture made of butter all in one day. Tickets to your state fair will cost around More…
The Money Mom
There are few things I like more than a challenge. Just ask my husband who heard me take the cable company to task the other night. (Suffice it to say when the Phillies game wasn’t coming in — again — despite the fact that we paid for the MLB package and the cable company wanted me to give them a three hour window for an appointment, I was having none of it. They are coming Sunday. At 8 a.m.)
Having Erin Chase, the mom behind the popular blog 5DollarDinners.com on my radio show yesterday felt like just that. A challenge. Could I make a dinner for four for $5 or less? Chase explained that her system involves couponing (natch) but also loading up on proteins, the most expensive component of most dinners, when they’re on sale. When boneless chicken breasts are $1.99 a pound, you don’t just buy a single pack, you buy four. Ditto ground beef. Italian sausage. Whatever your family likes. The freezer is your friend.
The whole conversation reminded me of my childhood. My dad was a college professor. My mom substitute taught. We had enough money but we certainly didn’t have a lot. And so my mother was a queen of inexpensive delicious meals. I don’t remember the entire rotation, but I remember a lot of it. Tuna and macaroni night. Chuck steaks that marinated the entire day. Rigatoni with meat sauce. My favorite — though — was Spaghetti and Clams.
Thanks to the canned clams, it’s a $5 dinner I make to this day. Enjoy.
Elaine’s Spaghetti and Clams
1 lb spaghetti or linguini
2 cans clams with the juice
1/4 cup oil (olive preferable)
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 T parsley (if dried), big handful of chopped (if fresh)
red pepper flakes to taste
salt to taste
1/2 cup white wine or vermouth (whatever you have)
parmesan cheese optional
Cook the spaghetti. While it’s cooking, in a large skillet, heat oil, add garlic and cook until light brown. Add clams with More…
Pets.
Food.
Sex.
Michael Silverstein, co-author of the upcoming book Women Want More, asked thousands of women: What makes you happy? Those are the top answers.
Pets.
Food.
Sex.
Not loving spouses. Fabulous children. Interesting work. Or a bank account full of cash.
Pets.
Food.
Sex.
I got a sneak peek at the book and Silverstein’s thought process when we touched base earlier this week. And so I asked him: What’s the deal? More…
