I don’t know what I was thinking when I booked a 6:15 a.m. flight to the Financial Blogger Conference, which starts this afternoon in Denver. Why, oh why, didn’t I travel yesterday?
That will teach me to make flight plans while I’m in New Jersey. Apparently the combined impact of heat, humidity and Tastykakes prevented me from thinking clearly.
In honor of Labor Day I’m giving away three books about the working world — and how to approach it on your own terms. Three books, three winners.
To prepare for my current column at Get Rich Slowly, “25 ways to give (without breaking the bank),” I counted my found money collection. From last December through yesterday, I’ve picked up $13.24 in singles and coins.
Here’s the surprising part: $5.60 of that amount was in dimes. As many as 56 people didn’t bother picking up the 10-cent pieces they dropped. I routinely see dimes in those “need a penny, take a penny” cups at cash registers, too.
Maybe some shoppers added the dimes by mistake, and maybe those who dropped coins didn’t always realize it.
Maybe they just didn’t consider it a big deal — or maybe they were too embarrassed to pick the money back up.
On the first evening of my recent New York trip I went to the “Bloomers Party,” an event for bloggers aged 45 and up organized by the Boombox Network. It was associated with BlogHer 2012, which I wasn’t attending, but a Boombox publicist invited me anyway. Bless her heart.
As you may recall, the Aug. 10 giveaway was a selection of intriguing treats that organizers sent home with me. But that’s not all I got.
Each attendee received a goodie bag full of items from party sponsors. The one that startled me the most was a product called Bring It Up instant breast lifts. I am not making that up. I couldn’t make that up. All I could think of was, “Instant breast lifts! Just add wobble!”
(This post is part of the “Life Insurance Movement,” created by Jeff Rose of Good Financial Cents. Just as with his “Roth IRA Movement,” more than 100 PF bloggers committed to write about a single issue on the same day to raise awareness.)
About six years ago I was a midlife college student and in debt after a divorce that had dragged on for two years. During that time I’d been helping my daughter as much as I could as she waited for her disability claim to be approved. (That took two years as well.)
After the divorce I figured to finish my degree on $12,084 per year – a mix of short-term alimony and leftovers from scholarships and grants. I was also determined to keep helping my daughter, since her disability payment covered rent and utilities but not much else.
One evening I had the radio on while I studied. An insurance commercial came on, one that I’d heard before. This time, it clicked: What would happen to Abby if I got hit by a bus tomorrow? I have no savings to leave her.
Ever wonder why you do (or don’t do) certain things? In “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” (Random House), author Charles Duhigg examines how patterns control our actions — and how those patterns might be thwarted.
It isn’t just the kinds of patterns that make someone like Michael Phelps a winner (although he’s in the book). It’s also about failures that become successes. One of the book’s teasers:
“Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.”
Tell me you don’t want to win this book, just to find out what that “nearly imperceptible pattern” was — and whether the marketing guy got himself a nice bonus for pointing it out.
Things got a little hectic during my New York trip last week. Too much to do, poor air quality, my inability to score at the lottery for “The Book of Mormon” tickets, heat and humidity, dueling deadlines and general exhaustion laid me low on Thursday evening.
(How many times do you get to use word “Mormon” and “lottery” in the same sentence? Not enough, if you ask me.)
Last week I was invited to a party affiliated with the BlogHer conference in New York City. Since it took place the night I arrived and since I met the entrance criteria (blogger, 45 or older) I accepted. The sponsor was Boombox Network, an “online social media collective” for Baby Boomers.
(It’s always a surprise to realize that yes, I am a Boomer even though I never really associate myself with that group.)
Boombox throws a nice party and I met some very interesting women. Afterward the organizers told us to help ourselves to the lovely snacks that had been set out. Some of these were unopened and will remain so — until this week’s giveaway receives them.
Does the photo of Lavender Pecan Brittle hold any appeal? If not (or if so), there’s always the New Mexico Red Chile Caramel Corn?
Let me say up front that it’s not as though I’ve never been to a big city before. I’ve lived in or visited quite a few.
But there’s nowhere like New York — especially for someone who’s spent eight years in a city where Scandinavian reticence mingles with progressive politics and hipster irony.
Allow me to share a few gawking-tourist observations, then. You’re likely in New York if….
You can walk out the door, cross the street and buy hot-from-the-oven bagels.
You pay $3.99 for cream cheese at the corner store. (Which is actually 50 cents cheaper than the bagel store was charging.)
The Sunday paper costs $5, and it has only one coupon insert and no color comics.
Thanks to the support of friends, readers and business associates I made it into the finals of the PF Olympics. Each of the finalists were given the same topic to write for the final judging:
“Which golden rule of personal finance have you abandoned since the recession, and why?”
For some reason I thought these would be judged by a panel of experts. I was wrong. Once more, it’s Internet voting. Argh. And once more, I’m asking for your help.