Excelle

What is your happiness worth to you?   For many years I stayed in corporate jobs that looked great on paper. But, in reality they were a poor fit (and that's putting it lightly).  Yet, I had grown accustomed to the life they afforded me—the nice Manhattan apartment with a backyard (woohoo!), gym membership, weekly manicures, saving the requisite 10% in ...

If you could ask ten wise women for advice on what to do (and what not to do) with your money, what would they say? They might offer the ten financial tips below, culled from our wise and money-smart contributors. 1. Saving For Retirement Is a Must Unless you don’t mind eating cat food in your old age, you have to ...

As unemployment continues to rise, everyone is looking for other ways to bring in some money while still searching for another job.  Although a job is the conventional way to earn money, sometimes you need to think outside the box or search outside your comfort zone in order to try something new and bring in a little bit of money ...

Inquisitive entrepreneurs and small business owners can find inspiring insights and common sense answers from two industry pros on MainStreet. Each week Dani Babb, a small business expert and the dean of Andrew Jackson University’s College of Business in Hoover, Ala., and Dr. John Rutledge, the chairman of private equity investment firm Rutledge Capital, offer their advice to scores of entrepreneurs ...

Losing a job can be terrifying. If you’ve lost your job, you should take these immediate actions to protect your financial well-being: 1. Ascertain Your Situation How long until the well runs dry? Now is the time to make a list of your expenses and see what can be reduced or eliminated. If you are entitled to unemployment, file your ...

Working from home sounds like the perfect gig. What’s not to like about videoconferencing in your slippers, ditching the daily commute, and getting out from under your boss’s watchful eye? Plenty, actually. Take it from someone who’s freelanced for four years, working from home may sound like a dream (all right, in some ways it is), but before you want to ...

While no one request is guaranteed to change the course of your career, business, relationships, or life, any single request can. Requests have the potential to make a profound difference to the quality of your life and your ability to achieve the success you want. Sure, just because you ask for something doesn’t guarantee that you will get it. But not ...

I heard a staggering statistic the other day about the number of homes that are going into foreclosure each day. In addition, people are losing their jobs as many businesses experience a decline in revenues and are struggling to keep their doors open. It’s certain that most of us are feeling the effects of this tougher economy. What we don’t yet ...

Budgeting isn't always easy - but it doesn't have to be impossible. And it's worth it. You'll live with less worry now, and endure less headache later on. Luckily, the Geezeo blog has come up with some basic money management strategies that are as simple as ABC. Follow their guidelines to squash your debt, start saving, and stop wasting money. ...

Knowing how long to keep an important financial document is the key to maintaining your personal security as well as managing clutter. Some documents can be shredded after short periods of time, while others should be kept indefinitely. Here’s a handy guide to help you figure out what to keep and what to shred, beginning with the short-lived documents: Keep for ...

With the unemployment rate careening toward 9% and companies doling out forced furloughs and pay cuts, the search is on for alternative sources of revenue. The good news is that you don’t need to look beyond your own workbench, sewing kit or crafts closet to find it. More and more people are finding that with a bit of cultivation, a favorite ...

You flinch when you get hit with an unexpected bill, don’t you? Especially when it’s raised even higher by penalties, and — even worse! — what if it’s for something you didn’t even do? Before the holidays, I got an iPhone so I could show-off WeSeed’s app to partners and anyone I came into contact with. So I called an AT&T ...

Every week you introduce more paper into your home, in the form of newspapers, magazines, flyers, coupons, schoolwork, correspondence, bills, and other documents. It may or may not be difficult for you to ensure that reading material and advertising is discarded when you are finished with it, but when it comes to financial documents, it can be much more challenging to ...

Once you have been laid off, one of the first things you are likely to think about is how you are going to replace your income. Unemployment Insurance (UI) was established by the government to provide unemployment benefits to workers when become unemployed due to factors outside their control to financially assist them while they are looking for employment. [widget:540] UI ...

Ripple effects of a dour economy are making this college application season as nerve-wracking for some admissions officers as it is for applicants. But for savvy families, there may be new opportunities. "A lot of schools are going to be concerned about meeting their requisite enrollment thresholds," says Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers. "They ...

How well are America's workers prepared for financial uncertainties and for the eventuality of retirement? In their own estimation, millions of employees haven't found a secure path to a bright future, whether that future begins in a retirement 40 years from now or at the end of the month, when the bills come due. Those are the disturbing findings of a ...

The shipping market is booming, and yet again Wall Street is speeding into the middle of a once-sleepy market. Bankers are rushing in to broker capacity, finance construction of new ships, and link buyers and sellers around the globe. And just as they did in the mortgage-lending business years earlier, traders are creating widespread use of derivatives. In just five years, ...

Baseball fans love to see what a big hitter might unleash at bat. Babe Ruth, the Great Bambino, won an astounding seven World Series rings with the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. He had a career slugging percentage of .690. The home-run race in 1998 between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa caught the attention of every kid with grass-stained ...

The current financial crisis has thrown terminology from the business pages onto the front page of newspapers, with jargon now abounding everywhere from the water cooler to the back of a taxi. Here is a guide to many of the business terms currently cropping up regularly, as well as some of the more exotic words coined to describe some of ...

Do women need specialized advice when it comes to money? Are we somehow so different from men in our approach to finance that we need books specially geared to us? When I first considered these questions, my instinct was to answer no. I figured I would write an essay explaining why women are just as confident and savvy when it comes ...