WalletPop

Just say no to peer-to-peer student loans ... at least for now

Zac Bissonnette — 2008-05-13T11:30:00+00:00

According to BusinessWeek, "In recent months, peer-to-peer lending sites such as Prosper and Virgin Money USA have introduced student loans or started marketing existing offerings to families looking for college funds. Others, including startups GreenNote and Fynanz, are focused exclusively on making college loans."

It's not a surprising development. Peer-to-peer lending has been growing in popularity for years and the tightened credit market is making it tougher for some students to secure loans for college.

There may be a future in peer-to-peer student loans but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Here's why:

Subsidized student loans are always preferable. Before exploring any private loans, college students should complete the FAFSA form and take steps to see how much they can borrow at artificially low interest rates.

Large financial institutions have the ability to tailor loans to the needs of students. The loans can be stretched out over long periods, deferred under certain circumstances, and more. Sites like Prosper.com are really not the place for complex financial instruments.
The world of student loans is highly competitive, and various websites including eStudentLoan.com make it easy to compare rates and terms between various banks. It's unlikely that you'll be able to get a better rate from a peer-to-peer site -- unless of course you're borrowing from friends. But if you're borrowing from friends, why do you need a networking site to act as a middleman for a hefty fee?

While the student loan market has tightened, there is still money available for students looking to go to college. If you can't find a conventional bank willing to lend you the money you need, you have to wonder whether you're borrowing too much and need to consider less expensive options.

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College student in need of a credit card? Look no further!

Zac Bissonnette — 2008-05-12T09:30:00+00:00

Filed under: College, Cards, Kids and Money

As the class of 2008 graduates from high school, a good chunk will be heading off to college. There they will be bombarded with free t-shirts and bottle-openers: if only they'll just take a quick moment to fill out this credit card application. The average college student will graduate with $3 thousand in credit card debt -- which might not sound so bad until you think about the fact that many graduate with none, meaning that the average student who uses a credit card in college graduates with considerably more than $3 thousand in credit card debt. And don't even get me started on student loans.

Since the vast majority of kids will get credit cards (It can be helpful for building a credit history), your role as a parent is to educate Junior about the process. Here are some tips for helping your first time credit card user get off to a good (or at least not destructive start):

Pick a card with no annual fee -- There's just no reason to pay a fee on your first credit card. Few college kids spend enough money for any rewards to justify the fee. Generally this will mean paying a higher interest rate -- tell your kid the interest rate doesn't matter because if he ever carries a balance you will disown him.
De-emphasize the whole rewards thing: remember, credit companies offer rewards because they increase their profits. Getting a $50 savings bond for every $2000 you spend might sound wonderfully financially savvy, but it isn't if the joy of saving induces you into overspending.
Urge them not to place anything other than necessities on the credit card: textbooks, gas, and other costs that aren't likely to increase due to the convenience of plastic. Clothing and especially restaurant meals should be paid for with debit cards or, better yet, cash.

Rather than wait for some snake oil salesman to sign your child up for a credit card when you're hundreds of miles away, take the opportunity to do it together, now. The CreditCards.com Student Credit Cards page has 9 cards for you to choose from, and you can click the links and fill out an application in just a few minutes.

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A magical Mother's Day without much money

Gary E. Sattler — 2008-05-09T12:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money, Shopping, Simplification, Relationships

A good friend and coworker of mine was having trouble finding the right Mother's day gift for his mom. He dearly loves the lady, and wanted to get or do something very special for her. His problem was that available cash was in short supply. After careful consideration he came up with the perfect Mother's Day gift.

He shaved off his beard and cut his hair, something she had been asking him to do for a number of years. His mom is joyous about the change.

I think I'm safe in saying that most mothers couldn't care less about whether or not we spend any money on commemorating their government-declared special day. Moms want sincere hugs and kisses. They want babbling grandchildren close at hand. They want their hands held firmly as you tell them how special they are to you. They want to know how the lessons they taught you still serve as guides in your daily life. Moms invest their whole lives in their kids. The dividends of motherhood should be just as sincere.
While diamond pendants and bouquets of roses are fine, and pretty paper cards with sentimental jargon may suffice, these things seldom reach the heart in the way a facial caress might. A big envelope stuffed with refrigerator art from the kids can carry more weight than a disinterested porcelain figurine. A sip of tea over conversation about family history may be appreciated more than dinner at a fancy restaurant ever would be.

Think hard about what your mom might appreciate for Mother's Day. Think from your heart, not from your brain or wallet. When you come across that idea which puts a lump in your throat or a tear in your eye, you have probably come across the inspiration for the best Mother's Day ever.

May God bless mothers everywhere. You are all truly awesome.

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Fantastic Freebies! Florida Marlins Kids Club membership

Zac Bissonnette — 2008-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money, Fantastic Freebies

Every day, WalletPop will be bringing you information about a fantastic freebie. Like what you see? Check back tomorrow for more!

Back in April, I wrote about the free Chicago White Sox kids club memberhsip. Not to be outdone, the Florida Marlins have Billy's Bunch, a kids club that's free to join for anyone 12 years old and younger. Members receive:

A Welcome Letter from Billy The Marlin
2 FREE Vouchers to attend a 2008 Marlins Home Game
2008 Player Poster
Baseball Cards
Marlins Eye black

The are also monthly contests to win signed memorabilia.

It's free, and you don't even have to be a Florida resident to join. If your kid's a baseball fan, sign em' up. The eye black will come in handy for Little League.

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Fantastic Freebies! Lemonade stand tips and start-up kit

Zac Bissonnette — 2008-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Food, Kids and Money, Fantastic Freebies

Every day, WalletPop will be bringing you information about a fantastic freebie. Like what you see? Check back tomorrow for more!

Summer will soon be here again and the sinking housing market might mean things are tight. You may no longer feel comfortable shelling out for summer camp for the kids, so you'll have to get creative. here's an idea: tap into the entrepreneurial instincts of youth, and help your kids start their first business. Yes, a lemonade stand.

If you log-on to Sunkist's site, you can find everything they'll need to get started: tips for young entrepreneurs, posters, a form for keeping track of sales (, recipes, advice on pricing, success stories, and information on how to use the stand to raise money for charity. If you fill out a form, they'll mail you a lemonade stand kit. They're out of stock right now, but check back soon for more.

But you probably don't need the cardboard stand: your kids will have more fun designing their own.

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Recession watch: No zoo visits this year

Sarah Gilbert — 2008-05-04T09:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Budgets, Extracurriculars, Food, Kids and Money

This post is part of a series about real-life signs we're in a recession.

I was pregnant with my first son, Everett, when my family bought a membership to the Oregon Zoo. Here in Portland, obstetricians actually suggest eager moms-to-be walk up and down the hills at the zoo when they're trying to stimulate contractions.

It didn't work much, but it started a family connection to the zoo (and hilariously, a baby mountain goat was born the same day as Everett), and now that we have three children, we've upgraded to the most serious membership of all. My husband's favorite thing to do with the children is to get on the bus (we've given up our family car) and take the boys to see animals. With the $100 annual membership, all our visits are free but for snacks.

Ahem. But for snacks. Visits have been few and far between lately, because the snacks at the zoo now seem so expensive. Even though the baby doesn't ask for elephant ears, buying even one treat for every family member with a full set of teeth can set us back $20 -- more than our typical family grocery budget for a day (and we haven't had a zip of nutrition, in all likelihood). I don't mind packing snacks for the boys to go on an afternoon excursion (especially if that leaves me home alone in peace), but have you ever taken a five-year-old and three-year-old to the zoo and refused to buy them the treats offered at every turn? Umm-hmmm. Avoiding the "gimmes" when we truly can't afford to satisfy them is the reason we now spend a lot more of our entertainment time enjoying the wildlife in our own backyard.

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Fantastic Freebies! The Magic School Bus Gets Cleaned Up!

Zac Bissonnette — 2008-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money, Fantastic Freebies

Every day, WalletPop will be bringing you information about a fantastic freebie. Like what you see? Check back tomorrow for more!

I was a big fan of the Magic School Bus when I was younger, and now the Environmental Protection Agency is offering free copies of a new book from the series, The Magic School Bus Gets Cleaned Up: According to the EPA:

In "The Magic School Bus Gets Cleaned Up," the children and Ms. Frizzle explore the pollution emitted from their own diesel school bus and learn about how to reduce the emissions as they find themselves traveling through a diesel engine. The children learn about idle reduction and ways the community can help reduce the health risks from diesel exhaust. At the end of the book, the "Magic School Bus" gets its own pollution control device, a diesel particulate-matter filter.

Sound interesting? Click here to order. The book and shipping are free and you can order up to 20. Perfect for teachers!

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The cost of making a kid a star...

Beth Wechsler — 2008-05-03T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money

With the competition reduced to four teams, this week's episode of I Know My Kid's a Star brings us to what might be thought of as the top of the homestretch. This is good news. It's almost over. Soon we will no longer be treated to mothers who say things like:

"They nailed her to the cross."
"At home I'm used to pushing her."
"I don't want to get frustrated with you here. Tone it down and start to cry."

Nor will we have to listen to children who have more maturity than their parents but are forced to speak like parrots.

Alai: "Couldn't you just talk it out with her?"
Gigi: "She's a liar and how do I feel about liars?"
Alai: "You don't like them."Setting aside what I am convinced is almost always the horrendous emotional cost to the child, what about the parent's investment? Mary Jo's mom said she'd invested $35,000. By this, we can understand she means classes and more classes, head shots, wardrobe, hair, travel, phone calls. She may - or may not - also be including the cost of the eye surgery that she reported Mary Jo endured. Perhaps the eye surgery was unrelated to the goal of stardom (I hope so) and isn't included.

What about the other costs? How do you measure the cost of time spent on the road? What happens to the rest of family life when one parent's energy is consumed by looking for an agent, traveling to an audition, fitting in yet another lesson? What is the cost to the other children in the family, to time together at home? What happens to down time, where kids don't have to practice anything and can just be? What remains for other interests and other possibilities?

For anyone who is considering traveling this road, consider this: ActingCareerStartup reports that each year thousands and thousands of teens decide to pursue an acting career - more than double that of most other demographic categories of actors. The odds of the investment paying off? Not good.

Worst of all, even if you win you lose. The real cost is to the child, to what is sacrificed in her emotional development while her energy is absorbed in developing a false self. Look at the young adults who "won" and made it to the top as child stars. It will remind you that it is likely you will need to factor in the other costs: drug rehab and psychotherapy.

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A recession fantasy

Beth Wechsler — 2008-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Home, Kids and Money, Simplification

At the risk of branding myself as a Pollyanna (does anyone still know what that is?), I think there may be a silver lining to a recession. No one wants to see people lose their homes or suffer the stresses that come with a downturn in the economy -- but some of our values are in desperate need of recalibration. Hard times can do that.

I have a fantasy. For those of you who have read my posts before and know where I come from as a child therapist, the fantasy probably won't surprise you. Imagine this.

The parent(s) have reviewed their financial situation and decided they will have to make some changes. Last summer the kids went away to camp for a month and the other month took three lessons each. The rest of the time, they mainly fought over the computer and ate cupcakes and cereal in front of the television.

They sit down with their children -- who are in this fantasy eight and 10 years old -- and break the news. It might go something like this:

"We're going to be making some changes this summer. We hope they're going to turn our really well, but you may be a little taken aback at first. We are going to be spending less money than we usually do and it's just possible that it will turn out to be a lot of fun.

"Here's the plan. You won't be going away to camp this summer. We're also going to cut back on lessons from June through the end of August. Your sixteen year old cousin will be coming to stay with us and she is going to take care of you when we're at work. She'll take you to the park and swimming when the weather is good. Sometimes she'll also take you to the kids' club and to community activities and to places like the library. You'll be taking public transportation and bringing lunch with you. You'll spend lots of time just hanging out and playing with the kids in the neighborhood. Your cousin likes to do arts and crafts, she plays soccer, and she likes boardgames. You'll be able to sleep in and - as long as she tells us you've been cooperating with her - you'll be able to stay up late.

We'll make sure there's always ice cream in the freezer and ice cream cones. Over the weekends, we'll be taking day trips together. We'll spend a week on a family vacation in August. We won't be flying anywhere, like we did last year, but we'll all decide together on something that will be fun. We hope that's good news. We don't think you're going to like the next part though. We're discontinuing cable television for the summer. We'll reconsider it for the winter though."

How does that sound to you? How do you think your children would react? If you - or they - worry about being bored then they're probably over-scheduled.

I'm not the only one wishing for a simpler, (and cheaper) summer experience. Check out Michelle Turk's and Julie Tilsner's posts on the topic, too.

What do kids -- the non-millionaire types - do with their money?

Laura Moran — 2008-04-30T15:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money, Wealth

The Olsen Twins were once the world's nations wealthiest kids but it seems that title has been handed over to none other than Miley Cyrus. PEOPLE magazine has reported that Disney's singing and acting sensation and her Hannah Montana brand are slated to bring in $1 billion by the end of the year. (Not bad for 15-years-old) And, while not a billion, other child stars, like the Jonas Brothers, Dakota Fanning, and Abigail Breslin are bringing in multi-millions each year.

This made me wonder what average kids are doing with their money and how much they get in the first place. I headed out on the streets of New York City to find out and it seems that New York's youth are spending the majority of money they receive on their sweet tooth cravings. Many said that they spend their allowances on candy, and sometimes toys and clothes.

These kids, who generally earn their dough by doing chores around the house, bring in a range of dollar amounts: anywhere between $7 and $40 a week. While Miley Cyrus says that she would like to purchase a vintage Corvette with all her cash and the Jonas brothers bought new computers with theirs, the kids on the street said that if they had that kind of money they would consider doing something else with it.

Many considered giving a portion of the money to a charity in need, while others said they would invest the money in the stock market, despite dismal returns at the moment. But, in general these wise kids came to the conclusion that someone of such a young age may not know how to handle large sums of money and it would be smart to get help dealing with it.

If you'd like to see more of the kids on the street, check out my video on Mainstreet.com!

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It costs what?! More families request financial aid for summer camp

Julie Tilsner — 2008-04-29T18:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Budgets, Extracurriculars, Kids and Money, Simplification

Kids may well count the days until summer vacation, but their parents are dreading it.

That's because when school's out, camps are in. And we've got to find a way to pay for it somehow.

Time was, summer meant three months of running free, finding ways to kill hot summer afternoons at the community pool or with friends or in your backyard campsite. Those days are over.

Now the culture dictates that kids have to be stimulated 24/7. The kids expect to be entertained, and the grown-ups need for them to be elsewhere while they work. The result: Summer camp. Science camp, art camp, ocean adventures camp, cooking camp, horse camp, Spanish camp, overnight camp...etc. etc. ad nauseum.

The folks who run these summer camps know they've got us over a barrel. The costs of camps range from the painful to the improbable. The cost of one week of Lego camp at a community center near me is $170 a week. Times two (for both kids). And there's a $75 registration fee. That's $415 for one week of activity that will keep the little nits out of my hair for three hours a day while I work.

I'd better be productive then. By my estimation, there are 11 weeks to fill.

According to the L.A. Times, more parents are putting off signing up for summer camps (March and April is when you typically have to sign up your charges, lest the camps fill up without you). And more of them are requesting financial aid in order to do so.

This doesn't surprise me at all. Camps are a huge financial burden for middle-class parents. Lower-cost options like Girl Scout/Boy Scout camps and YMCA camps fill up the quickest. The costs just go up from there.

Allow me to make a modest proposal. What happens if we all agree that this has to stop? Keep kids home from camp in lieu of a good old fashioned, boring summer experience. Get a neighborhood group together and establish a sort of summer co-op, by which the parents who are at home supervise the kids (kids in a group of friends will play for hours without bothering you, it's been established.). Let them run free, play ball, swim in the pool, bury each other at the beach. Working parents can offer their services one evening a week or on the weekends.

I know, I know. This is how it *used* to work, back when kids had nothing else to do in the summer but be kids and ride their bikes through the neighborhood all day. And smaller children require more supervision than grade school kids. Still, the idea of a long, hot, boring summer is an idea whose time has come around again. Why can't it happen?

Maybe not so easy. But much easier on the pocketbook.

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Concerned about the cost of college? Take summer classes locally!

Zac Bissonnette — 2008-04-28T10:00:00+00:00

Filed under: College, Kids and Money

As the spring semester winds down, college students are starting to figure out what they're going to do with their summers. Working, seeing friends, internships and perhaps a bit of travel are popular plans. But in light of the soaring cost of college, this might be an ideal time to look at a great way to save some money: Taking community college classes, transferring the credits, and maybe graduating college a semester or more early.

For an example of how this works, let's look at how a University of Massachusetts Amherst student might save money taking summer classes at Cape Cod Community College. UMass is a relatively inexpensive public university -- if you're attending a private college, the savings are probably much greater.

At UMASS, the total tuition and fees for one semester is $5,116 for an in-state student, not including room and board or any other expenses. A full-time student generally takes four or five three-credit classes per semester, working out to at least $1,000 per class.

You can take a three-credit class at Cape Cod Community College this summer for $394. If you take five, that could lop a full semester off your bill, saving you more than $3,000, not including room and board. And another thing: the sooner you graduate, the sooner you'll be working full-time at a more skilled job, so the actual addition to your net worth from this strategy could be well over $40,000.

A caveat: Because most community colleges won't offer the higher-level classes you need for your degree, this strategy works best for fulfilling general education requirements early in your college career. If you're a math major, community college might be a good place to take an English class over the summer.

Before you sign up, talk with your registrar's office to learn about the credit transfer process and find out which classes your college will give you credit for.

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Little kids need iron, but Iron Man?

Geoff Williams — 2008-04-25T19:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Home, Kids and Money, Simplification

Nothing like feeling righteously indignant.

I read this morning in MediaPost that the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) is asking Burger King to stop a promotion where it gives away Iron Man toys with its Kids' Meals. And at first, since I had just woken up and hadn't had my cup of caffeine yet, I thought, "This is a good thing. Iron is important to a child's nutrition."

Then half a second later I remembered the 43,000 commercials I've seen for Robert Downey Jr.'s upcoming movie Iron Man and got with the program.

And then I thought: Good for the CCFC.

Now, I'm a realist. I know that if you're going to live in the real world, and if you have TV, you're not going to be able to keep your kids away from commercials, and I don't think you should, frankly. Part of childhood is practicing to be a grownup, and I figure if somehow my daughters got through life without seeing any commercials, someday they'd be 24-years-old and defenseless when watching TV. I imagine them suddenly one night going on a $35,000 infomercial shopping spree with their credit cards, buying up items like George Foreman Grills and Ron Popeil's Rotisseries & BBQs.

When my kids -- currently 4 and 6 years old -- watch children's channels like Nickelodeon and the commercials come on, whether it's for a toy or just showing scenes of a vacation spot, they're often chanting, "I want that, I want that, and, Daddy, I really want THAT."

And it's up to me to usually say, "No, no -- and where would a dolphin sleep in our house, anyway?"

And, indeed, several times, my daughters have gotten all excited about Iron Man, which they know all about because Nickelodeon runs the ads about every 11 seconds, and I've told my girls that they can see the movie -- when they're older, in about 10 years when we rent or are buying movies on our hologram DVD player.

But whether asking Burger King to pull the toys is realistic or not -- and I don't think for a second that the fast food giant will bend on this -- I think the goals of the CCFC are noble. We need groups like this to point out when corporate America is being idiotic, and no offense to whoever greenlighted this promotion, but geez, what were you thinking? You're not a parent, are you? No, it's not like you came up with an idea to have Kids Meals with action figures from Saw or The Exorcist, but you're not making it any easier for moms and dads when you try to get preschoolers and elementary school kids all hyped up on a movie more suitable for hormonal, action-oriented 17-year-old boys.

And, geez, and now listen to me! I sound like one of those uptight grown ups that I snickered at when I was 17 . Thanks A LOT, Burger King!

Geoff Williams is a business journalist, a concerned dad and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).

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One more responsibility for schools

Tracy Coenen — 2008-04-25T13:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money

We live in a society in which schools are responsible for everything. Parenting is no longer such a hard job if you can just push your responsibility off on the schools. There was a time when parents raised their own children and taught them necessary life skills, and schools were there to teach reading and math and science.

No more. Schools now seem to be the primary source of parenting for children. I knew we were in bad shape when schools started serving breakfast to students because the parents weren't capable of feeding their own children. Parents apparently can't be counted on to teach their kids about the birds and the bees. They can't teach them about peer pressure. They can't teach them right from wrong and a whole lot of things that my parents did just fine with.The current problem is that parents aren't capable of teaching their children about money. A survey found that high school seniors can only answer less than half of personal finance and economics questions correctly. I suppose it doesn't come as any surprise. Look at the mess adult consumers have gotten themselves into with credit cards, auto loans, and home mortgages they can't afford. I guess they really aren't qualified to teach finance principles to their children.

At some point, however, we have to reduce the burden on schools. The logical answer to this problem of financial illiteracy is to force schools to offer classes in personal finance. Yet our nation's schools are failing in even teaching the basics to children. How are they going to keep adding subjects to the roster?

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

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Fantastic freebies! Computer programs to teach your kids about money using sports

Zac Bissonnette — 2008-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money, Fantastic Freebies

Every day, WalletPop will be bringing you information about a fantastic freebie. Like what you see? Check back tomorrow for more!

The other day I wrote about a fantastic freebie for kids: a violent video game courtesy of Uncle Sam.

On a more positive note, Practical Money Skills for Life -- a Visa-sponsored website devoted to financial literacy education -- is offering a pretty cool looking set of PC "games" designed to get your kids thinking about money in a positive way.

The list includes Financial Football, Financial Football Advanced Edition, and Practical Money Skills for Life, along with student workbook and a teacher's edition.

If you're a teacher, you can order many more copies and, if you're a parent, please forward this to your child's teacher if your school doesn't already have a financial literacy program in place.

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Fantastic freebies! Game of bowling!

Zac Bissonnette — 2008-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money, Fantastic Freebies

Every day, WalletPop will be bringing you information about a fantastic freebie. Like what you see? Check back tomorrow for more!

Bowling is fun but I haven't been in years -- mainly because I think it's too expensive.

But if you click here, you can print out a coupon for a free game of bowling at any of the alleys listed on GoBowling.com. And it includes a ton of lanes, so you should be able to find one in your area. What's the catch? You'll still have to rent shoes and you can only bowl between 8:00 AM and 6:30 PM.

Another thing: if you bowling with any frequency at all -- and you might want to start because the coupon doesn't appear to have any limits on the number of times you can use the promotion -- it might be worth investing a pair of your own bowling shoes. You can buy them on eBay pretty cheap and, even if they're used, it's probably less gross than the ones they've had at the bowling alley for the past 30 years.

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Earth Day plus Arbor Day equals $avings

Geoff Williams — 2008-04-22T16:31:00+00:00

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Kids and Money, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Someone should tell the Earth Day people that the Arbor Day people are trying to muscle their way into their territory.

I mean, here it is, Earth Day, and someone from the Arbor Day Foundation sends me this information about an 11-year-old named Michelle Holiman, from Stillwell, Oklahoma, who won their 2008 National Poster Contest about trees (that's the winning poster over there on the right). That's nice that they have this contest, and that this little girl won a $1,000 savings bond, but again, it's Earth Day. Arbor Day isn't for another few days, and aside from creating most of our oxygen for us to breathe, what can Earth Day possibly have to do with trees?

Well... maybe there is some overlap. In fact, trees provide more than oxygen, they can save us money. Here's what I learned, after the good folks at the Arbor Day Foundation tied me to a sturdy oak and gave me a talking to.

The net cooling effect of a young healthy tree is equivalent to 10 room-size air conditioners that operate 20 hours a day, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Landscaping can reduce air conditioning costs by up to 50%, by shading the windows and walls of a home. --American Public Power Association
If you plant a tree on the west side of your home, your energy bills should be 3% less. In 15 years, the savings will be nearly 12%. --Center for Urban Forest Research
Trees can stimulate economic development, attracting new business and tourism. Commercial retail areas are more attractive to shoppers, apartments rent more quickly, tenants stay longer, and space in a wooded setting is more valuable to sell or rent. --from the Arbor Day Foundation people themselves

So there you go. Get out there and help the economy and the world by buying a tree. And since I'm currently typing this article with my nose, into a blackberry, if anyone happens to be passing through their neighborhood and sees a writer tied to a tree, please go free him.

Geoff Williams is a business journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).

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Teens no longer recession proof consumers?

Josh Smith — 2008-04-19T10:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money, Shopping, Recession

Just as we inform you that department stores are planning to ride out the recession by leveraging teen spending, it is being reported that teens are becoming more thrifty. The change in behavior is being attributed not only to the coolness derived from thrift store finds, but also because teens are beginning to feel belt tightening at home and at work.

Teen hiring has dropped 5%, a much larger decline than the job market overall. This dip is attributed to the pressure local stores are feeling as part of the economic slowdown. At the same time as are teens discovering paychecks harder to find, parents are also cutting back on extras and allowance. These combined factors have high end retailers like Abercrombie and American Eagle reporting lower profit expectations, though Aeropostale and discount chain Steve and Barry's are expected to do well.

As someone who has had a job since a few weeks before I could legally work in my state, I worry about the trouble many teens may have as they try to find summer work. The jobs I had over the years were useful for many things other than getting spending money, including experience, adding to my maturity and building savings for college. I hope that there is an upswing in teen hiring as schools let out and that teens will put some of their summer paycheck in the bank or towards school payments. If teen hiring continues to decline through the summer months, business could get really tough for retailers whose niche is the teen market.

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Retailers target teens to ride out recession

Josh Smith — 2008-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money, Shopping, Recession

Watch out! Major retailers believe they have found a "recession proof" group of shoppers -- your teenager.

In a bid to avoid the closing of stores at malls nationwide, retailers are looking to capitalize on the influence teens have over household purchases. They believe that middle class teens won't feel the affects of a recession. Research shows that teens influence 90% of grocery and apparel purchases. Many stores are changing displays and using big names to lure a trend conscious younger market in their doors. The hope is that parents will come along too and buy items as well, further boosting the stores sales in an otherwise difficult time.

I see several issues with this strategy, one, which USA Today points out, is that children typically do not shop in the same stores their parents do. Call it rebellion or a strange fashion sense, but the last place most teenagers want to go is the same store their mom just bought a pantsuit at.

The second issue is, even teenagers who can't drive don't like to go shopping with their parents. Growing up, my sister and I would beg to be dropped off at the local mall with cash or mom's credit card rather than be forced to try on a plethora of clothes with mom in tow. If teens don't want to be in the same building, let alone the same store with their parents retailers will have difficulty raking in the extra impulse buys from parents.

Finally, if your teenager is influencing 90% of the grocery and apparel purchases for your household, you better be raking in the cash, because from my personal experience, teens tend to have expensive taste in clothing and food. Next time you head to the grocery store leave Johnny at home and during your next trip to the mall, show Suzy where TJ Maxx is.

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I Know My Kid's a Star - the halfway point

Beth Wechsler — 2008-04-16T11:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Kids and Money

It's good to know that we're reaching the halfway point this week on "I Know My Kid's a Star." The sooner this horror show is over, the better. True, it pales beside what has happened and is happening to the children from the LDS sect in Texas but it's no picnic for the kids on VH1 either. Some things are incompatible with the "best interests of the child," and I would argue to the end that striving toward stardom is one of them.

Last week's show was all about children as "brands." One mother had come in with the photo that showed her child's particular "look." Sounds like cattle being branded to me. Another mother was described as"very protective which is a great instinct as a Mom, but as a manager, you're going to have to push harder."

Actually, that's the whole point: being a mom and being a manager are incompatible.

Unavoidably, there were the usual moments of parental pressure captured for the pleasure of the stage-mother- hating public. It makes you wonder how far people will go to put themselves as well as their children in this kind of situation. Parents said things to their children like:

"They're going to crucify you."

"You're not even doing your best."

"If you can't do it, let's just go home. If we go home, you better not cry."

No wonder these children walk through the room and onto the stage looking like a line of robots.

The good news: Rocky has gotten herself (mainly) and her daughter eliminated. "The gig is up" for the Rocky Horror Show ,who in last week's episode referred to the other mother-child teams as, "whores and their brats."

Almost as good: Shannon, MacKenzie's mom, said, "I've never seen adults act like such children in my life. I believe that you can keep your morals and still make it."

Maybe, but it's a long shot.

My 87 year-old mother said it all. "These children shouldn't be burdened with this."

Beth Wechsler has a master's in social work from the Smith College School for Social Work. She has more than 35 years of experience as a child therapist.

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