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.

For some reason society as a whole has decided that weddings should be the brides "special day", during which nothing better go wrong for her. We tend to forget that weddings are just as important for many grooms and that it is also their special day! Having gotten married just under 3 years ago I can testify that the wedding registry offerings are very bride-centric. I think the only places which offered a registry catering to men in any real sense at the time was Amazon. It seems that a startup has recognized this void and stepped up to offer a wedding registry with the groom in mind.

The Man Registry is not only a male oriented wedding registry but also a great resource guidance and tips for grooms as well! The Man Registry is basically theknot.com with a shot or two of testosterone. The Groom 101 section is really cool with tips for everything from the bachelor party and rehearsal dinner to ring selection and financial responsibilities of the groom. Even if you don't partake in the kegerator and electronic laced gift registry they offer, these guides are priceless for the groom and the best man.

I wish I had The man Registry when I got married, at the time we settled on registering mainly at Kohl's, which provided a good set of essentials but lacked any stand out manly products. The advice articles also are well written and provide a great deal of information most first time grooms do not know. I plan to forward this one to several friends who are getting married later this summer and I am sure they will all find it useful.

If you have money to burn and you're allergic to pet dander, but you'd really like to have a cat; have I got a deal for you! ABC News reported recently that a company called Allerca claimed two years ago that they had developed the world's first hypoallergenic cat. Allergic cat lovers immediately began paying deposits for ownership of the sneeze-free felines.

Selling prices range anywhere from $4,000 to $6,000 for your average tabby all the way up to $35,000 for an exotic variety of "wild cat." Emergency room doctor David Avner, who has researched the key feline protein believed to cause allergic reactions, says hypoallergenic cats are a fallacy. That's where the matter becomes a bit cloak and dagger-ish.

The chances are good that you'll never need the services of a private investigator, but if you ever do, hiring a good one is essential to getting the desired results. I have found that definitive guides on the matter are virtually nonexistent, so based upon my rather extensive elbow rubbing with the men (and ladies)in blue, I have created the following guidelines for hiring a private investigator to serve your investigative needs.

Define your need. Understanding the type of services that you need an investigator to perform will aid in finding your ideal detective. As with all other fields of endeavor, PI's each have their own specialties. I suggest that you draw up an outline of what services you seek, a rough time line within which you'd like to see specific results and the final resolution that you are seeking. Creating a mental picture of the experience as you would like it to turn out can help you to make it become a reality. Be realistic however, effective investigations can be extremely time and labor intensive. Define your needs, then begin your search.

It's been a tough couple of decades for marriage. Facing a current divorce rate of approximately 50%, pundits and analysts have blamed everything from secularism to birth control to same-sex marriages. One study has even noted a connection between divorce and being a "born again" Baptist! However, regardless of the reason, the one thing that everybody seems to agree on is that marriage is on its way out the door.

There might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Recently, Kaiser Permanente conducted a study in which it sought to explore the potential connection between marriage and health care. The poll revealed that 7% of Americans admitted that, within the last year, they or someone in their household had decided to get married so they could get health benefits through their spouse. This ties in with the 28% of respondents who admitted that they had experienced problems because of the cost of health care. Respondents were more concerned about health care than housing and food costs.

While 7% is a very small fraction, it highlights a major issue: people appear to be making long-term life decisions based upon their worries about health care. On the bright side, however, the decline in health care may accomplish what alimony, societal approbation, and religious tirades have failed to do: it may strengthen the institution of marriage. After all, while many people don't have a problem with adultery and others aren't worried about going to hell, nobody wants to have an untreated case of strep throat!

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. His wife has great insurance and has told him that, if he sticks around for a few more years, she'll put him on her policy.

There's a lot of confusion out there about genetic testing, which probably explains why the American College of Medical Genetics recently issued a statement and some guidelines aimed at consumers thinking of paying for a genetic test, according to ScienceDaily.com.

Apparently, the college is worried because some folks might order the tests on their own, without a doctor's involvement, and suddenly they're convinced that they're going to die of some terrible disease within the month. They don't say that, of course. They give a dry, very grown-up and responsible commentary:

"Just because a genetic test exists, it does not mean it is right for everyone or even right for anyone," says Michael S. Watson, PhD, FACMG, executive director of the American College of Medical Genetics. "Medical genetic counseling, testing and treatments offer tremendous possibilities for the future of health care and genetic medicine will continue to play an increasing role in the timely prevention, diagnosis and treatment of genetic disorders but as in any new and changing field, there is a lot of misinformation out there and more research to be done. Consumers need to be cautious and always involve their health care provider, and in some cases a medical geneticist or genetic counselor, in their decisions about genetic testing."

So if you are thinking about doing any genetic testing, here are their recommendations, please take these suggestions to heart first.

1. A knowledgeable health professional should be involved in the process of ordering and interpreting a genetic test.
2. The consumer should be fully informed regarding what the test can and cannot say about his or her health.
3. The scientific evidence on which a test is based should be clearly stated.
4. The clinical testing laboratory must be accredited by CLIA, the State and/or other applicable accrediting agencies.
5. Privacy concerns must be addressed.

Probably the most important reason to think carefully about doing genetic testing is due to #5, which I'm pretty sure refers to the age-old question: "If I get a genetic test that shows I was predisposed to have a disease, will my health insurance carrier deny me coverage because they consider that evidence of a pre-existing condition?"

And, of course, we know that a health insurance company would never, ever do that.

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).

A few weeks ago, I wrote a short post about the return of gold prospecting; the rising value of gold has inspired would-be miners to pan for the precious metal, file prospecting claims, and generally do their best to re-create California's 1849 gold rush. Gold fever has even worked its way into suburbia, where gold parties have made it possible to convert one's own jewelry into cold hard cash, even as one sips wine and munches on cheese and many people are selling their collections of gold teeth and bridgework.

Of course, the problem with gold parties is that selling one's old gold jewelry by weight fails to take into account the artistry of the metalwork or the value of any jewels, which can greatly increase the price of a trinket. Besides, gold parties aren't all that useful if one has non-gold jewelry. While silver and other precious metals have also increased in value, they haven't enjoyed the amazing inflation that has made gold so precious.

Another problem is the fact that jewelry often has powerful emotions attached to it. We give jewelry during periods of heightened emotion, and the gifts tend to retain a lot of those emotions, even after the relationship has gone south. Good or bad, it can seem a little callous to simply throw away these relics of boyfriends and girlfriends past.

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a backlog of newspapers and happened across two articles that addressed the rippling effects of the country's current economic woes. Although these two stories had almost nothing to do with each other, it seemed to me that, between them, they very eloquently showed how economic problems have a way of affecting everybody.

The first article dealt with food banks in the Bronx. The area's food banks, food pantries, and soup kitchens provide food to unemployed and lower-income individuals, often on a short-term, emergency basis. These organizations, in turn, receive their food stocks from a combination of personal and corporate gifts. Unfortunately, higher food costs and smaller amounts of disposable income have translated to massive drops in donations. Added to this, the unemployed population is steadily increasing, which means that a smaller and smaller pie is getting divided into more and more pieces.

This problem is, apparently, very widespread. For example, a food bank in Idaho has reported that the number of jobless people that it helps has increased by 10% every month this year. Moreover, these new food bank clients often come from the ranks of the middle and even the upper middle classes; for example, CNN recently reported the story of Patricia Guerrero, who went from having a $70,000 a year job in February to using a food bank in March. While Ms. Guerrero might have had fewer money in savings than most people in her economic position, hers is still a very eloquent cautionary tale.

My New Year's resolution was to catch up on my Rolodex. Maybe that's setting my sights pretty low but it's more important than it sounds. There's a saying that he with the biggest Rolodex wins. In a nutshell, business - and often lots of other parts of life - can be all about who you know and networking.

In this computer oriented society, it's easy to forget about business cards. If something comes to you via computer, you may add it to your mailing list but the quickest way to handle a business card is still to stick it in a rolodex. Mine is so old that more than probably a third of the contacts are obsolete and the edges of the cards are tattered.

Think of all the times that your path crosses with someone else's - all the business cards that people hand you (some of them artistic treasures and for the rest of us just Staples variety) - all the nice people you meet. Keep these contacts where you can put your hands on them.

In Don't Worry, Make Money - Spiritual and Practical Ways to Create Abundance and More Fun in Your Life, Richard Carlson, Ph.D. reminds us to delight in the success of others. He fesses up to the inclination that most of us have to want to be more successful than our friends, to be competitive and jealous. "While it can be seductive to try to keep others at your level, it's absolutely, positively not in your best interest. The way to rise to the top is to wish everyone well, to hope with all your heart" that others succeed ... There's plenty of success to go around." While that may sound like a spiritual message (iwhich yes, it is), it's also a business message.

I'm putting the scattered business cards and the Rolodexes - the old and the new - in the same stack as the other things that I like to do when I watch a dvd - that is, ironing, bill paying, and the very occasional sewing. I'll put my stack of personalized postcards (an excellent way to remember to say hello, congratulations or thank you) with them. Networking matters - in a variety of ways.

What would happen if you developed a mystery illness, and what would happen if your insurance carrier found a way to weasel out of paying for it?

Hopefully you'll never find out. But if want to know what it's like, you can ask Lori Hall Steele.

I heard about her story earlier today, and I read about her in this recent article in her hometown paper, and all I could think was that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain should be all over this, the next time any of them get into a health care debate or discussion. If there was ever an argument for universal health insurance, it seems like this would be it -- well, among thousands of other sad tales out there, obviously.

Ms. Steele is a freelance writer in Traverse City, Michigan, and has written thousands of articles about everything from weddings to war and coyotes to chocolate truffles. She has penned stories for the Associated Press, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and numerous magazines from Brides to Kansas City Parent. And when she was a young reporter, she won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award citation for a newspaper series that chronicled the lives of impoverished single mothers in rural northern Michigan.

Coming full circle, she, too, is now an impoverished single mother, thanks to the help, or non-help, of her health insurance carrier.

Signs explaining how management has no choice but to pass along their increasing costs to the end consumer are becoming as familiar a point-of-sale display as an Am-ex tent card. Everything from a carton of eggs at the supermarket to the paper cup for my coffee comes with a side order of doom these days.

So it was refreshing, to say the least, to receive this in an e-letter from a Little Rock, Arkansas business yesterday:

NO HIGHER PRICES!

Boulevards answer to the unbelievably higher prices for flour, (from $10 a bag to $29 a bag), butter, eggs, and all other commodities is to be more efficient, waste less, to work harder, and to build volume through great service and exceptional quality products, (we are working tirelessly to improve service daily)!

You will NOT see a price increase for the foreseeable future! Please continue to support us, every customer is SO appreciated and loved!!!

-Scott McGehee, Boulevard Bread Co.

I called up Scott, who owns and operates the coffee/gourmet food shop, beloved by local hoity-toities and hipsters alike, to ask him about this radical departure from the herd. He told me that he is determined to find reasonable alternatives to making his customers carry the burden of his increased costs. How novel. Most other businesses seem to turn to the consumer's wallet as a line of first defense, not the last resort.

Last week, Walletpopper Zac Bissonette wrote about the dividends of honest customer service. Is goodwill toward an establishment money in the bank? If so, strategies like Boulevard's might yield better returns in the long run than the usual "we're suffering, so should you" line.

Have you heard of any businesses in your community taking a similar approach?

Kyran Pittman blogs about life at Notes to Self. Her essays have been featured three times in Good Housekeeping magazine's "Good Reads" section.

If June is marriage month, perhaps May should be called 'clearing the decks for marriage' month. Distasteful as many find money talk, taking the time to plan your post-nuptual finances can help you avoid one of the most common sources of newlywed stress.

To guide such a conversation, here are a some topics that you might address--

1. Where you stand. What are your current debts? Savings? You might both request and share credit reports so that you can get a sense of your borrowing power (and any roadblocks that might have been 'overlooked').

2. How you plan to handle money. Who pays bills? Will you combine accounts or maintain separate ones? (My wife and I have always maintained separate accounts so that she has her own established credit history. Too many widows of marriages in which all finances were done in the husband's name have found themselves identitiless in the financial world after his death.) How about debts incurred when single? How does each get spending money? Are you comfortable with self-imposed allowances?

3. Future aspirations. How will you fund savings? Retirement accounts? Travel? Medical costs? Obligation to take care of Mom and Dad? Buying a home? Kids? How soon? How comfortable are you with debt? What are your income expectations? What are your financial red flags?

May is not too soon to have 'the talk', the one about money. June is too late, for sure. And waiting until July is a big, big gamble.

From our Department of the Obvious - A University of Michigan study has shown that a husband creates an additional seven hours of housework for women, while wives save men an hour of housework per week.

The latest results of an ongoing study of housework trends showed a continued decline in hours of housework done by U.S. women since 1976, down from 26 hours to 17. The time men spend on housework, in contrast, has doubled, from six hours per week to 13.

Surprisingly, the study found that marriage increases the time spent on housework for both women and men. It also showed that single women in their 20s and 30s only spend an average of 12 hours a week on housework, while those in their 60s and 70s devote 21 hours a week.

More kids means more housework, as you might expect. Three kids raises a woman's housework to 28 per week. Surprisingly, men with more than three kids actually do far less housework on average, down to 10 hours per week. I'd speculate that the desire for a large family and the identification of housework as 'woman's work' are somehow related.

Gracias to Science Daily

The other day I went to get my hair cut at a place I hadn't been to before -- I'm new in this town. After the haircut, I asked how much it would cost to have my eyebrows done. The stylist told me $10 and, while I consider myself a penny-pincher in most respects, I do occasionally indulge in luxuries like that.

I told her that I would like to have them waxed and then she looked at my face and said "They look fine. I could clean them up a little but honestly, I don't think anyone would be able to tell the difference. Don't waste your money on it."

This came from the stylist! Warren Buffett once said that you should never ask a barber if you need a haircut but I guess he didn't know about this wonderful lady's sense of honesty!

So what was the outcome of it? I didn't get my eyebrows waxed, costing the salon $10, and costing the stylist the couple bucks I would have given her as a tip. But on the other hand, I gave her a very generous tip for the cut as I appreciated her saving me $10 and, more importantly, I've decided that I will use that salon as I long as I live in this town. Honest service at the expense of short-term profits is hard to come by these days, but I think it does pay off the businesses that really do decide to put their customers first.

MSNBC recently posted some good advice for engaged couples about transitioning to a new financial life together. It has good tips on how and when to initiate a discussion about money, on budgeting, understanding one another's spending and saving patterns, setting goals and on getting outside advice.

Long-married couples and partners can benefit from advanced versions of this kind of advice. Far too often, couples with even the most solid financial plans hit serious potholes when the main breadwinner(s) retires. To those accustomed to a healthy direct deposit landing in the bank account every two weeks or so, the transition from accumulation to depletion can be a tough (if for some, only psychological) pill to swallow.

Dealing with money as retirees is a whole new ballgame. Everything can come into play, from who keeps the checkbook, to how (and by whom) income will get generated, if need be. The net, unexpected effect of not acknowledging these changes, or of not addressing them, is serious friction -- a kind of pressure in direct odds with the automated relaxation response most expect when work ends, and a leading reason even some well-heeled retirees cite for having a less than fulfilling retirement.