This Week in Your Wallet: Preparing for Vacation Season
You wouldn’t know it from the chillier air in parts of the country, but spring is definitely in the air, and here to stay. The sunny blue skies have made for fantastic running weather — and, it turns out, a reason to daydream about summer. Yes, I know, it just got nice and I shouldn’t [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: A Tax on Online Purchases?
If you’re a fan of online shopping, you’re not going to like what I’m about to say: late Monday afternoon, the Senate passed a bill that would require online retailers to collect sales taxes. The bill — called the Marketplace Fairness Act — would not institute new taxes, but it would require shoppers to pay the same [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: Sandy’s Effects and Flood Insurance
Depending on what time you wake up in the morning, you may have seen that yesterday’s Morning Joewas a special edition, broadcast directly from some of the areas that were devastated by Hurricane Sandy exactly six months ago: Asbury Park, NJ, Belle Harbor, NY and Seaside Heights, NJ. “They’re still looking for a lot of help [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: Protecting Your Nest Egg
This week, I wanted to start with a splash of sobering statistics that recently caught my eye: according to a recent study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 57 percent of U.S. workers have less than $25,000 in savings and investments, excluding their homes. What’s more, 51 million Americans who have 401(k)s don’t understand how to [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: Breaking Down the Bitcoin
Before I get to the news of the week, let me just say that my heart goes out to the people of Boston, anyone personally affected by this tragedy, and runners everywhere. Economist Justin Wolfers wrote the words I wish I had when he tweeted as @justinwolfers, ”If you’re a runner, you know the beautiful feelings of community [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: Business Tips From Icons
They say that bad news comes in threes. Unfortunately, this was true this past week, which saw the passings of Roger Ebert, Lilly Pulitzer and Margaret Thatcher. While all three figures were famous for quite different reasons, each was a giant in his or her field (journalism, fashion, politics), and each has left a legacy that [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: When Shopping Becomes an Addiction
Last week, journalist Buzz Bissinger (of Friday Night Lights fame) made headlines when he announced that he is a shopaholic. And unlike the movie on the subject, which took a moderately funny approach to the ailment, Bissinger was not joking. “I bought when sober and I bought when drunk,” he wrote in GQ magazine. “There was a stealth action in [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: Struggles in Wealth Building
On Friday of last week, I went on Morning Joe to talk about a new, disturbing trend: young Americans are not building wealth as quickly as their parents did at the same age. The research, conducted by the Urban Institute and recently reported in the New York Times, revealed that while the average wealth of Americans has doubled over [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: Delaying Retirement or Extending the Fun?
Can you retire? I say, “Yes, you can!” — though the question du jour seems to be, “but do you really want to retire?” According to a recent article in TIME magazine, workers who delay retirement might actually be happiest. “Working just two or three years longer can shore up your retirement security; it gives you the added benefit of staying busy, [...]
This Week in Your Wallet: Taking Care of the Family Business
I’ve got business on the brain today — perhaps because it’s Try-It-Out Tuesday! That’s what you’ll find when you go to the new and improved jeanchatzky.com, which is now up and running. Every day, you’ll find a new blog post (feel free to facebook, tweet and otherwise share them with your friends), original content created by me and my [...]