Grandparents.com

Paycheck too small? Maybe you’re just ugly.

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thIf you’ve got a face made for radio or a body that doesn’t fit Madison Avenue’s image, you may feel that you’re not getting a fair shake. And you may be right.

For example, tall people earn more than shorter ones. Overweight men earn less (and overweight women earn a lot less) than non-obese coworkers.

And this one really frosts me: A Harvard University study indicates that women who wear makeup are seen as “more trustworthy and competent.” Hey, not all of us want to put on war paint each day.

“Unfair, but true: How your looks affect your pay,” on Money Talks News, discusses the ways bosses can legally discriminate against you.

Sometimes those ways are pretty ridiculous. One employment law expert has heard from people who got canned because supervisors didn’t like their shoes. Seriously.

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‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and other PF topics.

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guardians of the galaxyI had a blast watching “Guardians of the Galaxy,” so much so that I later took my great-nephews to see it – a second viewing for all of us. That time, though, I went with an eye toward superheroic money lessons.

Hey, if I can do it for “Parsifal,” “Godzilla” and “Gotterdammerung,” surely I can do it for comic-book heroes.

“8 personal finance tips from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’” ran recently over at my day job, Money Talks News. Among them: “Classics endure,” “Good sense trumps sentiment (or should)” and “Judge performance, not appearance.”

Show me another job that lets you charge your movie ticket as a business expense. Other than movie reviewer, that is.

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Swimsuits, gleaning and Christmas in July.

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thFor women, there are two kinds of bathing suits: the kind you promenade in and the kind won’t fall off when you dive into a pool/get hit by a wave.

The latter actually happened to me when I was a young teen, down at the Jersey Shore. Luckily my feet were planted in the sand so the suit bottom didn’t have a chance to float off, but for a few very anxious seconds I felt like the little girl at the end of this old Coppertone ad:

July is the best time for discounts on both bathing suits and summer clothing, according to a merchandising specialist at Retail Me Not. Tips for finding good deals on such can be found in my current post at RMN’s The Real Deal, “What to buy in July: Celebrate the best of summer, right in your own backyard.”

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Welcome, Grandparents.com readers!

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thI thought my website’s dashboard was playing an April Fool’s Day trick on me when I got up this morning: Not even 8:30 a.m. and I already had nearly 1,200 page views.

Nope: It was because more than 600 of you had read “6 everyday habits that are draining your wallet” in the Grandparents.com e-newsletter and then trotted over here to read my linked post, “14 ways to get off the kid-gift treadmill.”

Welcome to all of you, and I hope you stick around to read a little more. As noted in the “About” section of this site, Surviving and Thriving is my playground for words, a place to express ideas that don’t always fit neatly into other sites’ expectations.

Sometimes that’s in a fun way, e.g., “Midlife love rocks! (Ask me how I know).”

Sometimes it’s a midlife-musing way, as in “The bottle blonde at the DMV.”

And sometimes I just get really angry about something and need to vent, such as “Think you’re broke? You probably aren’t.”

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