Happiness
Money Roundup: How to Spend Less Than $100 on Christmas, The Best and Worst Things to Buy in December, and More
Friday, December 2nd, 2011
It’s a lonely job scouring the web for the finest in personal finance. But I’m happy to do it. Here are 10 of the best articles from my searches over the past week. Arsenic in Your Juice (Consumer Reports). Getting the best deals at the grocery store means more than finding the best prices. It ... [Read more]
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An Essential Formula For a Financially Healthy Marriage
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Money is one of the prime sources of conflict in marriage. However, conflict avoidance isn’t the route to a happy marriage. In fact, John Gottman, a psychologist who has devoted over two decades to studying what makes for a healthy marriage, believes that “fighting—when it airs grievances and complaints—can be one of the healthiest things ... [Read more]
Finding Meaning In Our Work
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
In the opening scene from the movie About Schmidt, Warren Schmidt, played by Jack Nicholson, is staring at a clock on the wall of his office, counting down the minutes before his final day at work will be over and his retirement will begin. He has spent his career working as an actuary for an ... [Read more]
The Art of Simple Living
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
Not long ago, a friend went through his closet and gave away literally half of his clothes. Rather than missing the items, he said life felt less complicated. Instead of feeling deprived, he felt freed up. Jane Hammerslough, author of Dematerializing: Taming the Power of Possessions, describes how a roof repair gone wrong forced her ... [Read more]
Money Lessons From an Old Toy Fire Truck
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
I took one of our kids’ toy fire trucks to the curb the other day to be hauled away with the trash. And it made me cry. It was a pathetic, beaten up old thing. The steering wheel was broken. I mean, a piece of it was missing. And none of the battery-operated features – ... [Read more]
The Money/Happiness Connection Revisited
Friday, September 10th, 2010
It’s a timeless question: does more money translate into more happiness? A new study by researchers at the Center for Health and Well-Being at Princeton University shows that happiness does increase with income – to a point. At $75,000 per year, happiness levels off. But the study was actually more nuanced than that. The researchers ... [Read more]
The Master(’s) Principle
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
In the late 1960s Stanford University researchers conducted an experiment among hundreds of four-year-olds. One at a time, the children were brought into a room and told they could eat one treat such as a marshmallow right away, or if they could wait until the researcher returned from a brief errand, they could then have ... [Read more]
Worker Sentiment Sours
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
In an era of high unemployment, it’s not very wise to complain about your job. However, there’s a lot of dissatisfaction out there. According to a survey by the Conference Board, just 45 percent of Americans are satisfied with their jobs. That’s the lowest rating in the 22 years that the organization has been surveying ... [Read more]
Rethinking Retirement
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
According to Businessweek, the Age of Retirement is “over.” The magazine summed up its stark “vision” of our later years in four words: “Forget retirement. Keep working.” For many older workers there is simply no other choice than to continue working in their later years. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), half of ... [Read more]
What I Believe
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
I am very excited about the launch of this new web site and blog. Switching from the eNewsletters I’ve been writing for the past three years to a blog will allow for more of a two-way dialogue with readers and will free me to write about more money-related topics. Since this marks the beginning of ... [Read more]
