wowOwow radio: A sneak peek!
The wonderful Liz Smith and I interviewed director Joel Schumacher and personal finance expert Jane Bryant Quinn for wowOwow radio, and both interviews will be airing on Sirius XM radio this weekend on Channel 107. To listen to the whole show, tune in on Saturday, 8/5 at 8 am, 9 am, 6 pm and 7 pm EST, and Sunday, 8/6 at 9 pm and 10 pm EST. But in the meantime, I have a sneak peek of the broadcast for you! To see who Schumacher wouldn’t want to work with again and how Quinn says you can protect your finances, check out the clips below — and don’t forget to tune in this weekend!
They don’t call it smart shopping for nothing but these days it’s not the money we spend that’s making us feel brainy – it’s the money we save. That’s what the researchers from Deloitte and The Harrison group learned. They surveyed 2,000-plus consumers and learned that four out of five say they find saving money using techniques like coupons and loyalty programs “fun.” So fun, in fact, that 93 percent don’t plan to return to their frivolous spending habits when the economy improves.
The jobs picture is pretty dismal. The official national unemployment rate is still at a relatively high 9.5% – and the underemployment rate at a more alarming 16.5%. But that’s not all of it. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more than five applicants for every job. It now takes 35 weeks on average to get a job. And 45% of people have been out of work more than a half year. At the beginning of the recession it took 17 weeks and only 17% of people were out of work more than a half year.
Ask a 40-year-old investor looking at the middling balance in her 401(k) how she feels about it and I’ll bet you she says something like this: “I should have started saving/investing earlier.” Could it be that this generation – this student loan-laden generation – of people in their first jobs has actually gotten the message?
I had the pleasure of being a last-minute pinch hitter on the Women and Finance Panel at the 92nd Street Y this past Wednesday, joining Alexandra Lebenthal, Karen Finerman and moderator Julie Menin. (Suze Orman’s emergency appendectomy pulled her away – get well, Suze!) The idea for the evening grew out of informal salons that longtime friends, now business partners Finerman and Silda Wall Spitzer, have been holding to give women a chance to ask their questions – all their questions – about money. Over coffee, Spitzer and Menin (another friend) decided to try to bring the salons to a bigger forum. Later that day Spitzer ran into the head of the 92nd Street Y and – voila. 
My friend Diane just finished taking her finals. She’s gone back to school to get a degree in nutrition – just one step, for this former sales and marketing exec, as she plans her second act.
