Got questions about the post-work world? Get answers for free during an eight-hour online chat this Thursday.
It’s sponsored by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern, 20 money professionals will tackle your questions on topics such as:
Yep, I’m electioneering. This year I entered the #MoneyMinute contest sponsored by GO Banking Rates, and I’d appreciate your vote.
In fact, I’d appreciate your daily vote plus your willingness to share the info with friends and social media contacts. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The contest is being judged by reader votes vs. a panel of writing experts: Not ideal, but it’s the way this particular game is being played. That’s why I’m asking friends, relatives and readers to view my video and vote.
I can find personal finance advice just about anywhere, which is why I’ve posted articles like “6 financial lessons from ‘Godzilla’,” “Zombie consumerism” and “10 personal finance lessons from the Iditarod.”
Thus I was on the lookout at last Wednesday’s Metropolitan Opera’s HD re-broadcast of “The Merry Widow.” This is not an opera about bustiers. In fact, it’s not even an opera, but an operetta – lots of speaking roles but with enough musical numbers to keep an orchestra busy.
It’s pretty fluffy fare: The Paris embassy of the impoverished Grandy Duchy of Pontevedro plans a formal ball and invites the titular widow (played by Renee Fleming), who came into big bucks upon the death of her much-older husband on their wedding night.
Officials are terrified that she’ll marry someone outside their country and take her money with her, which could tip the country into bankruptcy. They scheme to fix her up with the ultra-eligible Count Danilo Danilovitsch. What they don’t know is that the two were once in love but his family forbade the marriage – at that time, Hanna was a country girl without a cent to her name.
Does she still love Danilo? Do you even have to ask? But things aren’t that simple.
A couple of months ago I spoke at the New Media Expo conference in Las Vegas. While there I met a slew of podcasters, some of whom asked for my card and inquired as to my availability for interviews.
One of them recently followed up: Dot Cannon, an independent new-media broadcaster with TwoMaverix.com. In her Over Coffee podcast series she talks “with artists and innovators about the process of changing the world in terms of what they do.”
We set a date, did the interview and now “Game-changing the future” is available for your listening pleasure.
A new survey from MasterCard includes what sounds like a bizarre round of “Would You Rather…” More than half (55 percent) of respondents say they’d rather have naked photos of themselves leaked online than have their financial info stolen or compromised.
So would I.
Nekkid pictures would be pretty darned embarrassing for a while, but identity theft is for-evah.
Folks would have to go looking for photos of you in the altogether, but apparently ID thieves sell and re-sell their ill-gotten info. You get one case of fraud snuffed out and another one pops up across town, or across the country.
During a business-related trip to Texas last summer, I met up with a blogger who goes by the name “empressjuju” and blogs at (the) Vegas in Austin. Along with her husband we enjoyed a delightful regional brunch (think “breakfast tacos”) and talked about money and life.
Homeownership was definitely on their minds. But months went by and they kept discovering swell new restaurants and activities. Austin can do that to you.
This kind of overspending is insidious, she noted later, and it can feel oddly necessary because we’re all such busy people. In fact, her husband was inclined to think that it wasn’t really a problem.
The empress begged to differ. “How are we ever going to buy a house if we keep spending like this on food? We are eating our house!”
Cohabit in haste, repent in poverty. Or at least in aggravation, according to a recent survey from Rent.com.
“How finances will be divided” is the top issue that survey participants wished they’d talked about before sharing space. What a surprise.
“He/she doesn’t pay enough of our expenses” is a recurring theme in advice columns and, I’d bet, in couples’ counseling offices. If I had one suggestion to anyone planning to move in together, it would be “talk about money – and keep talking.”
Last year a line leapt out at me from, I believe, an MSN Money article: “Saving is the new sexy.”
I read it out loud to DF. His response: “It’s the old sexy as far as I’m concerned.”
That tickled me so much that I wrote both statements on a piece of scrap paper and taped it to my work station. Sooner or later, I knew, I’d be writing about this.
Finally I am, thanks to a survey from Ally Bank. It found that three out of four people believe it’s important for mates to share a similar financial philosophy. And the most appealing financial habit?
The folks at H&R Block recently mailed out a couple of logo items for the 2014 tax season. Naturally I just had to turn mine into a giveaway – adding, of course, a few artistic touches of my own.
There’s a particularly high snafu potential this year due to the Affordable Care Act. Too, there was the customer service misstep by Intuit, which made major changes to the Deluxe version of its popular TurboTax software in a way some customers didn’t like. (H&R Block responded with an offer of a free replacement product; follow the link for details.)
So in advance of any issues you may or may not have, you should enter to win the 2014 Tax Season Survival Kit. It includes:
Bloggers and readers in the Phoenix area: Wanna talk about money, midlife, millennials or ‘most anything else? Hope you can attend a meet-up on Saturday, Feb. 21.
The do will be hosted by me and my daughter, who blogs at I Pick Up Pennies. When I say “hosted,” what I mean is that we’ll be there and we’ll save you some seats.