My third daughter was due to be born on December first. As you know December and the weeks before Christmas are busy any year let alone having a baby at that time.

I have always loved Christmas and I didn’t want to give up the joy and happiness of this season of the year by being overwhelmed with the birth of my baby. I made a plan and I stuck to it. The following organizing tips are what I did then and still do to this day:

1. I set a goal to have all of my Christmas gifts bought or made, wrapped and delivered before December 1st. And I did too, then she didn’t come until December eighth so I had bonus time.
2. I made a detailed list of everyone I would give gifts to and what I wanted to buy them. This way when I saw a sale early in the year I was able buy what I wanted at a reasonable price.
3. I planned time with my other two children by making goodies and paper crafts with them that we later delivered to families surprising them with goodies every night for 12 days before Christmas.

It has been over 30 years since that Christmas but it has been one of the most memorable. Because of the planning and preparation that I thoughtfully put into it in advance; * there was time to get gifts for everyone, *enjoy the decorations and music of the season without being rushed, and *spending time with my family and *being able to help another family at this
busy time.

What organizing tips do you use to plan ahead for the holidays that have made them easier and more organized?

Another week another big bailout plan hangs in the balance. This is starting to feel like a really bad, melodramatic soap opera already.

This week it’s the Big 3 auto makers from Detroit who have extended their hands, trying to make a grab into big brother’s pocket: Ford, GM and Chrysler. Deciding whether or not to bail out the biggest three auto makers in the U.S. has been a daunting challenge for lawmakers in the lame duck Congress, where the rescue plan is stuck in the Senate after days of deliberations. Even the lame duck President does not want to make any commitments.

(From Yahoo Finance)
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., canceled plans Wednesday for a vote on a bill to carve $25 billion in new auto industry loans out of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund. The Bush administration and congressional Republicans have rejected Democrats’ plan to dip into that pot of money. Warning of economic disaster, a bipartisan group of senators from auto industry states are trying to reach a deal on an alternative package. If an agreement can be reached, Reid said, the Senate still could vote on it as part of a measure to extend jobless benefits.”

All three CEO’s from the respective companies painted a grim picture of their financial position, despite having flown in to the two day hearings on their private corporate jets and expensive suits. Their claim, “Detroit’s automakers, hurt by a sharp drop in sales and a nearly frozen credit market, burned through nearly $18 billion in cash reserves during the last quarter, and GM and Chrysler both said they could collapse in weeks.”

The proposed legislation, now on life support, calls for the U.S. government to extend a 10 year, $25 billion loan to the companies. But, it is unclear where the government would lie in the pecking order of creditors the companies already have (ie. in case of default).

Frankly, the capitalist in me thinks they deserve to fail, as heartless as that sounds. Any MBA student from a reasonably reputable college understands the importance of maintaining a nimble corporate strategy and competitive advantage. Where have these smart guys been the last ten years as the Japanese automakers little by little encroached on their market? They lagged in innovation, technology and pricing. The albatross around their neck, the union known as the UAW (united auto workers), has systematically made their costs of production, labor, etc. unreasonably high in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Something had to give. Either you make better cars, invest in fuel efficiency or cut your prices….otherwise, you are toast! Fast forward to today, when Americans have cut back on spending, banks have stopped lending as vigorously and consumer demand just dropped off a cliff. America cannot keep subsidizing companies whose leaders are blatantly incompetent, stupid or just plain greedy (or some combination thereof).

Now, I’m very sorry about the prospects of 1 to 3 million innocent people losing their jobs and potentially experiencing pension defaults. The impact could spell considerable discomfort in the short term to the economy and the financial markets. But, a bailout of these companies is not justified. Who’s next….the airlines, the farmers, the mid sized manufacturer in the industrial parks of Hialeah Florida, the corner flower shop? Give me a break!! As far as I’m concerned….farewell big 3…pigs get slaughtered and now it’s your turn to go. Good luck in Bankruptcy court.

Do you have an Advisory Board for your business?  Have you considered it but you don’t know where to start?  An Advisory Board can be one of the best things that you can do for your business if you use it correctly.  It take work and it take commitment from everyone, done right everyone benefits.  Here are some steps to creating your Advisory Board.

1.  Select 3-10 people you believe can bring valuable assistance to your business.  I asked people who are in my network and  who new my products and services, they were raving fans. I had a high level of respect for each of them and their business success and I knew that they would hold me accountable.

2.  Ask each person if they would be willing to serve on your advisory board. You cannot get to yes if you do not open yourself to the possible no.  Let them know you value their opinion and would like to have them on your board.

3.  Let your board know how often you would meet, when you would meet, what you would like to achieve, and why you chose them to help you.

4. Set your first meeting and be prepared.  Start your meeting on time and have an agenda.  Let your board know what your goals are, what you are currently doing and what kind of things you want to do.  Let them ask you questions and get to know your board.  Above all, be completely prepared to work each time you meet.

5.  Thank your board, ask how you can help them.  I ask my board the last time we met, what it was that I could do for them.  Their response, “Keep doing what you are doing, be prepared and do what you say you will.”  I was very surprised, I am always prepared and always do what I say.  I also take great pains to find referrals for my board members.

A Board of Advisors is a great way to help you focus on your business and build strong relationships, it is a great way to strengthen your network.

Submitted by I’m Right and You’re Wrong (ED. While this article talks about making Aliyah- or moving to Israel- the relevence is clear for anyone relocating to a new area)

There is a great article over at Aish.com written by Tara Eliwatt, about parenting and Aliyah( moving to Israel). She describes the ups and downs of making Aliyah with small children who have to try an integrate into the Israeli school system. Her Hebrew is non-existent and her kids are not much more fluent.

In an emotional moment for any parent she says, “I don’t want to leave him. I want to sit with him and talk to him and tell all the boys at the bus stop, “Hey — you’ve got to get to know this kid. He’s so bright and creative, and lots of fun to be with! He’s sensitive and thoughtful. He would be a great friend to have.” But they don’t speak English, and my Hebrew is poor at best. Instead, I drive the car slowly away, peering into the rear view window to see if he follows my advice.
I can’t blame him for not being assertive at the bus stop. I’m afraid to call Israeli mothers on the phone to arrange play dates for my kids. What if they don’t understand me? What if they don’t want their child playing with an American?”

Organizations that promote Aliyah, like Nefesh B’Nefesh, have done such a great job in helping olim get acclimated in Israel, whether it be helping finding a job, a suitable community, and/or easing bureaucratic red tape. Because of NBN’s success, we may forget that a major issue that is beyond the scope of any organization is helping children make new friends, and get comfortable in their new surroundings.

Eliwatt says that a well placed ice-cream cone, or a trip to the park can help ease the transition as it helps bring the family closer and remind all that they are in this together.

She concludes, “But at least a few times a week, (before I’ve lost my patience, raised my voice or done some other parenting faux pas), my daughter has looked at me with a sweet smile on her face, asking, “Why are you such a good mommy?”
I don’t recall ever hearing that question in America.
There is a sense in the family that “we’re all in this together.” And perhaps, in witnessing our children slowly acclimate to their new life, we are inspired to work harder to adapt and to accept the changes in our own lives.”

A must read article for anyone thinking of relocating to a new geographic area.

As submitted by NewRulesofInvesting

This is a side to side comparison of two of the best online financial sites: Yahoo Finance and Google Finance.  Yahoo is still the largest and most popular finance site by far but Google is serious about finance.  Let’s see how the two financial portals stack up against each other.

Speed

Google Finance: Typical fast-loading Google pages.  Google’s site is broad and doesn’t go deep.  Pages for individual stocks are only 1 page deep (Google links out for things like option chains, major holder, etc.)

Yahoo Finance: Yahoo Finance is fast.  As opposed to Google, Yahoo content resides primarily on Yahoo pages and Yahoo is responsible for page load speed throughout the site.  This can fluctuate as any large website can throughout the day.

Charting

Google Finance: Google primarily uses a simple javascript-loaded chart without any bling.  It loads fast and allows easy to manipulate x-axis (time period).  When you’re figuring out what a particular stocks has done over the past 17 days, the chart also calculates the return for a given time frame beyond the standard 1-day, 5-day, 3 month, etc. time period.  Google also plots news events onto their charts which is kind of cool (not necessarily tradeable).

Yahoo Finance: Yahoo Finance charts are much more robust.  Advanced charts have incorporated a similar charting function like Google’s and provides an overlay of numerous technical indicators (MACD, RSI).  Because these charts are so powerful, they also tend to be bulky and seize up.

Real Time Quotes

Google Finance: Google provides real time quotes both during market hours and pre- and post- market.  Google’s quotes on market indices tend to skew erratically during the transition to an open market as well as trails when the market makes large moves to the upside or downside.

Yahoo Finance: Yahoo also provides real time quotes both during market hours and off.  Yahoo’s premarket quotes are not as reliable as Google’s.  Yahoo occasionally doesn’t have a price premarket for a wide array of stocks.  Yahoo has a scrolling ticker as well for stocks that is personalized to the behavior of the user.

Breadth

Google Finance: Google gives basic info all on one page.  Anything more a user needs to link off.  News, financial info, blogs all included.  Very shallow, quick and dirty use.  Google does a good job bringing in blog content but lacks good, standardized PR content, still necessary in the research process.

Yahoo Finance: Yahoo provides an entire research environment.  All the content and data is supplied by Yahoo.  From major holders to options chains to blogs and PR, Yahoo is a virtual poor man’s Bloomberg.

Innovation

Google Finance: Google allows users to download data, making the site more portable than we’ve traditionally seen.  Google portrays the data environment well around a stock.  Beyond that, nothing particularly innovative about what Google’s done so far.
Yahoo Finance: Yahoo Finance is the 800lb gorilla and essentially helped to democratize financial information.  Yahoo has done a good job bringing in financial blogs in a controlled environment, using SeekingAlpha to help filter.  Charts are very powerful.  Not too much current innovation going on either on the surface.

With so much focus on Barack, we were interested in seeing what his first lady, Michelle Obama, had to say about child rearing.  As a mother of two young children, it’s interesting to read her views on raising a family.

Know when to fold them: In an interview aired in September on the season premiere of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” Michelle Obama was asked whether she and her husband were planning to have a third child.

“I think I’m done,” Ms. Obama told Ms. DeGeneres. “I think our third child is this campaign.”

Co-opt their father into helping more:  From The Chicago Sun Times, “Michelle keeps him very grounded. She makes him throw out the trash,” said Davila.  “He makes the bed when he’s in town. They are a couple. He’s a husband and father, so when he’s home he has to do things the way other people do them.”

Incorporate more snuggle time: From the Wall Street Journal, Michelle Obama talks about the effects of the presidential campaign on family life.

WSJ: With Mr. Obama traveling almost nonstop, are you doing anything differently with your daughters?

Michelle Obama: Without Barack there in the morning, the girls and I have “snuggle time” in my bed. I turn on the lights and we stay there cuddling … have deep conversations and talk about what it would be like if we could stay in bed all day but that wouldn’t be realistic, we wouldn’t learn to read…

Economics is not a complicated topic when viewed in a broad sense. The economy can either do well or do poorly. When it does well, prosperity lasts for a while, but it almost always slows down and starts to do poorly again in the future. Then, it will swing back up again. Those times of economic slow down are called “recessions.”

Recessions are inevitable, so it is only sound financial advice to tell you to plan ahead for them, even if you are currently experiencing a time of economic prosperity. If you are in a recession, there are steps you can take to keep it from impacting you too much.

The most dangerous thing that happens in a recession is job loss. As the economy slows down, people slow down their spending, and businesses suffer. This forces them to lay off workers, and those workers are the ones that suffer the most during a recession and most likely need financial help.

The best way to protect yourself from this possibility is to lay up some cash reserves. Economists recommend having three to six months worth of living expenses saved. This takes time, but you need to start working towards this goal in your financial planning.

Another danger of a recession is price increases. As companies try to make up for the lack of sales, they are often forced to raise prices. You can combat this by learning to cut coupons, shop sales, and stock up on your necessities when they are at a good price. Also, make sure you are only buying what you need. Save the “extras” for an occasional treat, but learn to tone down your spending habits. A recession is not the time to buy a lot of “extras.”

Finally, whether the economy is good or bad, make sure you do not take on too much debt. Your non-mortgage debt should be as close to zero as possible. If possible, keep your monthly payments that are going towards debt, including your mortgage payment, around 30 percent of your total monthly income. Anything more than this is dangerous, particularly during a recession. Learn to live without using your credit cards, as this is one of the most expensive and dangerous forms of debt.

Getting good financial help and planning through a recession is not as difficult as it might seem. Make sure you are saving your money, and limit your credit spending. Soon you will see the economy swing back toward the positive side, as it always does.

The goal of SingleMomFinancialHelp.com is to help women change the world through information and education. We are creating a support structure through which all women of the world can educate one another about where they have been, where they are right now and where they are going. With help from our site and the information and articles we distribute women will be more educated in finance, business, home matters, relationships, career and higher education.

With blogs popping up all over the web like weeds, the question is how does one build a successful blog. I guess the first question is how to define success? For arguments sake let’s define success as heavily trafficked and commented on.

I cam accross a very informatove post from mominisrael. She gives a list of tips that have helped her become successful.  Among her tips she writes: ” I started by commenting on other blogs that address similar topics. If a blogger begins posting here, I usually add that blog to my reader. (A reader is a web page that lets you know when the blogs you like have been updated. I use Netvibes, but Bloglines and Google Reader are more popular.) Lately I comment less (I hope temporarily), but I still read. ”

Doshdosh asks, ” So what’s the secret to building a large blog readership? Content dissemination and the development of a supportive core audience. And that’s really the key. It’s not just about the quality of your content. It’s about having broad distribution channels.

Once again, readership growth doesn’t only depend on the merit of your blog posts, but rather their circulation reach. It’s about how much attention your content receives.”

Finally, Positivityblog has a long list of tips to help you be a better blogger. Here is just one of the tips: ” Learn from more experienced people. This is so key - in any area of life really - and can really help you to improve quickly and avoid wasting time. I recommend not only subscribing to the two excellent resources called Problogger (about blogging) and Copyblogger (about communicating better and more persuasively). I also recommend delving into the archives of these two blogs. When I started blogging I spent two or three weeks reading lots and lots from the massive archives of Problogger. I learned a lot about blogging, marketing, monetization and what you should and should not do. Before I started this blog I knew very little about blogging. After those weeks I at least had a basic education that was very helpful. If you are thinking about creating your own blog or have just started one I recommend reading the big series Blogging Tips for Beginnersover at Problogger.”

Happy blogging.

are you working your Network.  I asked this question of several of the students in our Referral Dynamics Class last week and I later asked the same question of several BNI members.  In every case they said that they spent a great deal of time working their networks.  They attended the regular meeting, connecting with their fellow members, and they indeed did work their network.

Unfortunately that is not the network I was speaking of.  That is one of the places that you go to network, I was speaking to “Your” Network.  Those people whom you have in your database, those people who have met when you have been out networking.  How much time do you put into working your network, calling them up to reconnect, sending articles to them, meeting them for coffee, inviting them to events, or publishing them in your newsletter.  Do you track your activities and whom you are spending your time on?

The Referral Institute has a very handy tool called the “Networking Scorecard”.  This tool allows you to track the activities that you are spending on your network.  Creating a proactive process for nurturing your network, so when you have a need there is no problem picking up the phone and calling someone in your network and asking for help.  After all, you have spent quality time working your network.  Sometimes it is more important that you spend time developing what you have then adding more to the mix.  Once you have developed your network, then you can spend time adding more to the mix.

Learning about your career options and planning and preparing your career path are proven success strategies, regardless of generation. Top guidance and career counselors are trained to provide this kind of help. Ideally, you get realistic and practical advice along with encouragement to reach for higher goals.

A good example of top notch career guidance is Ilene Frommer, who was recently profiled in the New York Times. She is a guidance counselor at a public high school in Sonoma County California. Once you read about a typical day in the life of Ms. Frommer, you’ll not only appreciate the critical work she does, but also the work of thousands of other excellent school counselors across the country. Visit her high school’s online college and career planning resources to see what top quality advice she provides her students and parents. If you’re a working adult contemplating a career change, much of the advice is timeless.

Even if you do not have access to a counselor like Ms. Frommer, thanks to the internet you can take a page from her playbook (forgive the sports metaphor) and learn from her career planning approach, which is similar to ours. In fact, Naviance – the online course, college and career planning system her school uses, includes The Career Key as part of their product. Whether you are 17 years old or 50, the lessons are the same – research and planning, career information and preparation, are your tickets to success.

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices — career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.