So, You Think You Can’t Afford a Home?
Priced out of homeownership but tired of renting? The rent-to-buy hybrid is getting a new lease on life. Had a look at housing prices lately? Yes, we’ve seen the news headlines announcing a drop in housing prices, but they’re still historically high: on average $348,079 in the US at the beginning of 2022, an increase […]
Sí, puedes hacer algo contra el cambio climático
A medida que la COP27 se pone en marcha en Egipto, es hora de hacer algo más que hablar del tiempo. En cuanto al clima, 2022 ya es un año para recordar. Ian, el huracán más mortífero que ha azotado Florida desde 1935 (que también ha devastado Venezuela, las Islas Caimán y Jamaica); olas de […]
Yes, You CAN Do Something About Climate Change
You don’t have to be prepared to spend your savings to save the planet. There are daily decisions you can make that will make a difference: reflection rather than refinancing.
Don’t Be THAT Tourist!
Tourists bring in a lot of money but overcrowding and bad behavior are sparking a pushback in many popular destinations. Here’s a tourism etiquette check list.
How to Change Your Career at 50+
You’re not on your parents’ career path. Age 50 may be the time to take another path forward. Here’s how to do it. First it was longevity: all those Baby Boomers prospering, eating better, living longer… Then necessity: many were not also saving and therefore are unable to stop working and retire. Then it was […]
Genetic Testing: Promise or Pitfall?
At-home genetic testing is all the rage, but should you change your life based on the results? “You have to know the past to understand the present,” Carl Sagan famously said. Makes you wonder what the astrophysicist would think about today’s obsession with knowing where we came from — not just in astrophysics terms, or […]
Oops! The Costs and Risks of Reversing Plastic Surgery
Cosmetic surgical procedures are on the rise worldwide. But today some of those procedures are putting things back the way they were.
Does Beauty Have to Be Toxic?
“There is no torture that a woman would not endure to enhance her beauty.” Michel de Montaigne (French Renaissance philosopher) History tells us men and women have been willing to risk even death to enhance their natural beauty and follow the fashion of the day. Indeed, the quest for beauty has been the basis for […]
Dancing Your Way to Fitness
You’d have to be living under a rock not to have read recently at least one of the several thousand studies proving that exercise increases your energy levels, fights fatigue, and even relieves symptoms of depression. Well, here’s one from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine that goes even further. The study, published […]
Can You Advance Your Career While Working From Home?
The initial thrill of working from home – connecting with colleagues on Zoom calls dressed in a jacket and shirt and pajama bottoms, eschewing that morning commute – is beginning to wear off. While many remote workers report being able to spend more time with their families, or taking up gardening, or saving on gas […]
Gig Workers: How to Collect Late Payments
“The cheapest form of credit is paying suppliers late.” That’s insight from a debt collector – Hans de Keijzer, Head of Policy Management for Allianz Trade, the world’s largest trade credit insurer and part of the Allianz global insurance family. And while late payments may be a boon for the client, if you’re the supplier…it’s […]
There’s Money Lurking in Your Closet
Can you name an asset that has steadily appreciated in value over the past decade, impervious to market fluctuations, appreciating 500% between 1980 and 2015? It’s not financial services or heavy industry or even technology. It’s the Hermes Birkin bag. Yes, a handbag. But not just any handbag. The Birkin bag, created by the late […]
Home-Based Businesses Need Beefed-Up Insurance Coverage
Everybody knows the stories about Silicon Valley bazillionaires who started out working in their garage. Nice stories but setting up a business in your home isn’t as easy as shoving a desk into the guest room and hoping for the best. There’s insurance for one thing. Businesses face risks that individuals don’t and relying on […]
Electric Cars: Where’s the Juice?
With gas prices at 40-year highs and popular consciousness of the perils of global warming climate change increasing, you may be thinking it’s time to look into buying an electric car…seriously. You wouldn’t be alone. Including hybrids, sales of electric cars made up 7.2% (accounting for 5.6 million vehicles) of global car sales in the […]
Beyond Vegan: Lab-Grown Meat
If you haven’t already tried a meatless hamburger, chances are you will bite into one soon. Some 57% of American households have already taken the plunge and the number is growing fast. The customers, by the way, aren’t all vegans. Industry research shows 98 percent of people who buy plant-based meat also purchase conventional meat. […]
Do You Have What It Takes To Retire Overseas?
When you start approaching 65, you take out your calculator and start figuring out how much income you’ll have – and how much you’ll need — when you decide to retire. Once the shock wears off, you may start thinking about downsizing…sometimes downsizing overseas, where your dollar often goes farther, and the lifestyle looks cheaper […]
Post Office Banking: It’s Not Just About the Money
Would you open a bank at the post office? The issue is on the congressional agenda, following the proposed Postal Banking Act that would establish permanent essential financial services in post offices in every U.S. community. Supporters such as Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) call it a “public option” offering financial services […]
Getting a Grip on Climate Change: Decarbonization for Consumers
Record-breaking heatwaves, hurricanes, forest fires, rising sea waters, flooding. Once one-time anomalies, now commonplace, and becoming worse. Natural disasters fueled by a warming planet caused record damage and displaced millions of people according to two assessments of insurance claims in 2020. As United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters at the UN’s New York headquarters […]
Does Your Insurance Cover You for Remote Work?
Once upon a time, employers tended to view working from home as a boondoggle. Who knew what employees were up to if they weren’t working in the office? Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and those skeptical employers became believers: overnight, working from home became the only viable option to staying in business. After all, all […]