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Baby Boomers Rock - but not in chairs

Lots and lots of babies were born in the United States between 1946 and 1960. This population explosion created a phenomena known as the Baby Boomer Generation. Boomers have remained the single largest grouping of people at every stage of their lives, and have dominated the national landscape the entire time. If you want to learn more about what this generation has done and is doing now, check out How Baby Boomers Work by David Neilsen.

Bone Density Tests - Should You?

A bone density test uses special X-rays to measure how many grams of calcium and other bone minerals — collectively known as bone mineral content — are packed into a segment of bone. The higher your mineral content, the denser your bones are. And the denser your bones, the stronger they are and the less likely they are to break. Doctors use a bone density test to determine if you have, or are at risk of, osteoporosis. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends a bone density test if:

• You're a woman age 65 or older
• You're 60 and at increased risk of osteoporosis

The older you get, the higher your risk of osteoporosis because your bones become weaker as you age. Your race also makes a difference. You're at greatest risk of osteoporosis if you're white or of Southeast Asian descent. Black and Hispanic men and women have a lower but still significant risk. Other risk factors for osteoporosis include low body weight, a personal history of fractures, a family history of osteoporosis and using certain medications that can cause bone loss. This article from the Mayo Clinic tells you about bone density testing and how to interpret your results.

     Learn about Medical Conditions from Merck

Condition Guides on MerckSource provide you with condition-specific health information and resources. Using their pull down menu, you can check out everything from asthma to urinary track infections. You will also find links to other medical authorities for the condition including:

• A.D.A.M. Health Illustrated Encyclopedia
  Get clear, concise information on disease, injury, nutrition, medical tests, first aid, and more. Plus, it's loaded with illustrations to enhance your experience.
• Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary
  Use the same medical dictionary that healthcare professionals have relied on for years. You'll find advanced definitions for over 115,000 medical terms.
• HealthMapSM Platform
  Use these unique maps to learn about specific aspects of a disease or medical condition.
• Merck Manual—Home Edition
  Access the essential health reference guide The Merck Manual—Second Home Edition. Discover in-depth information on all of your health and medical concerns.

How-to Videos on the Web

Once upon a time, how-to guides on the web were just numbered lists and badly-drawn diagrams. Now those guides have gone multimedia. Expert Village has more than 17,000 videos. A recent sample had on line videos about growing day lilies, leveling a laser line tool, and how to sail with the wind. You can also browse categories of videos including: automotive, beauty and fashion, crafts, and many more. A similar offering from the UK is called VideoJug. VideoJug mixes user generated clips with professionally made content. Videos are accompanied by a text version, and you can download clips to your iPod.

Replacing that broken china

Many of us have china services that are treasured possessions and have been handed down through our families. Over time perhaps some pieces have been lost or broken. If you want to find replacements, you may want to check out: Replacements, Ltd. The Greensboro, NC company specializes in helping customers track down discontinued and hard to find china patterns, glassware and silverware. The company has more than 11 million pieces of inventory stock from more than 250,000 patterns. You can call their 1-800 number or email them for help. According to their site overview, they have more than 600,000 digital images on our site to help folks identify their pieces. They also have a research department dedicated to helping people track down their patterns. In addition to china, they have a selection of stoneware, crystal, glassware, silver, and collectibles.

Meditation for your health

Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years. Meditation produces a deep state of relaxation. Originally, it was meant to help people deepen their understanding of the mystical forces of life. Today, many people turn to meditation for stress reduction and have found it useful for medical conditions that are aggravated by stress including:

• Allergies
• Arthritis
• Asthma
• Chronic pain
• Depression
• High blood pressure
• Heart disease

This article and video link from the Mayo clinic can help you get started.

Recycling - because you can

     Taking care of your heart - for women only

Maintaining your heart's health is possible and important. In the past, the focus on heart health and research has been dominated by research on men. But, now there are increasing studies and advice about what women should be doing to maintain their heart health. In this updated edition of “The Healthy Heart Handbook for Women,” the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have put together all of this new knowledge in one easy-to-use, 127 page handbook. The book covers risk factors, diagnosis and testing, and current research findings - all about women.

Preventing food poisoning

At best food poisoning is an unpleasant experience. But, at its worst, it can be life threatening. Food poisoning is a gastrointestinal reaction caused by eating contaminated food. Most often, food poisoning occurs because the food has been incorrectly handled, improperly cooked or inadequately stored. Typical symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea that come on suddenly (within 48 hours) of consuming a contaminated food or drink. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that in the United States alone, food poisoning causes about 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and up to 5,000 deaths each year. Here is a handy guide to preventing food poisoning from the Mayo clinic.

Gift suggestion for the women in your life

Buying a women perfume may not be unique but what if you designed a perfume for her – using essential oil fragrances you know she likes or that match her personality. Garden Botanika has a service to help you. At their stores or online, you can design a special scent that will get you recognized for the thoughtful person you are. You choose a base scent, then add scents from the over 60 fragrances based on essential oils. The resulting personalized perfume can be shipped to you or the women in your life in lovely spray or splash containers.

Naturopathy - a natural health care alternative

Naturopathy is a whole medical system that has its roots in Germany. It was developed further in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States, where today it is part of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). The word naturopathy comes from Greek and Latin and literally translates as “nature disease.” A central belief in naturopathy is that nature has a healing power the human body) have the power to maintain (or return to) a state of balance and health, and to heal themselves.

Practitioners of naturopathy prefer to use treatment approaches that they consider to be the most natural and least invasive, instead of using drugs and more invasive procedures. Naturopathic physicians are educated and trained in a 4-year, graduate-level program at one of the four U.S. naturopathic medical schools accredited by the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education.

This 10 page booklet from National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine provides a general overview of the techniques, training, and references for further investigation.

Are Timeshares for you?

If you have been thinking of buying a vacation home, a get-away place where the pace is slow, the temperature comfortable, and the scenery is, well scenic, what's stopping you? If like many of us, you realize that buying a house to use a month a year is not the most cost effective use of your money, perhaps you should consider a timeshare. In a timeshare, instead of paying full price for the property and owning it yourself, you pay a share of the price. This share allows you to use the property for a certain period of time every year. The rest of the year, other people who purchased shares get to use the property.

Before you jump into a timeshare, you need to do your research. You need to understand the up front costs, maintenance costs, and how you schedule your time. The How-Stuff-Works section on timeshares provides a good introduction to the topic. The Smart-Traveler gives you insight into good and bad things that can happen to you in timesharing. And, Timeshare Travel & Associates, one of the oldest timeshare organizations, gives example locations and cost information on their website.

Some things you should tell your doctor

Approximately 70% of those between 50 and 65 have either situational or routine use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) . But fewer than one third of those users mention that fact to their primary care physician. CAM is defined as diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. CAM includes products and practices such as herbal supplements, meditation, chiropractic care, and acupuncture. In a research study by the National Institute of Health, the common reasons given for not discussing CAM use with personal care physicians were:

• The physician never asked (42%)
• The respondents did not know they should (30%)
• There was not enough time during the office visit (19%)

CAM products may interact with traditional medications. You need to tell your doctor about their use. If you want additional information about CAM and the NIH study of its use, you can read the entire report and background information at: Complementary and Alternative Medicine: What People 50 and Older Are Using and Discussing with Their Physicians. Another excellent reference on CAM and traditional medicine is discussed in this article from the Post Bulletin and this Mayo Clinic book on alternative medicine.

 You can't avoid aging, but you should know what to expect

Of course aging is a natural process and the alternative is not good. But, as you begin to see that gray hair or those smile lines on your face, what else is happening inside your body as you age. The Mayo Clinic article on aging provides a good overview of how your body is changing. You will get information on normal changes to your bones, heart, senses, and systems. There is a quiz to check your knowledge about aging and reference articles on taking care of yourself so that you age well.

Eat food, mostly plants, and not too much

What should you eat to remain healthy? The title to Michael Pollan's piece in the New York Times (NYT) says it all - at least according to Michael, the Knight professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” was chosen by the editors of The New York Times Book Review as one of the 10 best books of 2006. His thoughtful essay from NYT January, 2007 includes simple advise such as: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main course. And, you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products.

The essay talks through who stands to benefit from the current confusion about what foods are ok to eat and which ones to avoid. He discusses: the difference between food and food-like substances; the history of the nutrition movement; and he ends with his own findings and recommendations for an approach to food itself - believing that good nutrition will follow. The article is written is an engaging style. And, buried in the entertaining presentation is a whole lot of good information and insight about food.

If you have not registered to read the free articles from NYT, you may have to do so.

Wikipedia - A valuable research and Q&A resource

Begun in 2001, Wikipedia is a popular online encyclopedia reference tool with over 2,000,000 entries in over 200 languages. Wikipedia allows users to add and edit entries.The peer review process and the knowledge quality makes wikipedia a valuable research and answer resource. In addition to searching for articles on topics of interest, the home page of Wikipedia has several fun items like: news, what-happened-today-in-history, interesting facts, and a featured picture.

Wikipedia is managed by a nonprofit parent organization, The Wikimedia Foundation. The content of Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. Thousands of people have contributed information. You can learn who is responsible for the most recent versions of any given page by clicking on the "Page history" link. Wikipedia has become one of the most extensive information libraries available on the Internet. Although there may be biases or errors in content, the extensive checks and balances minimize this possibility. Guidance on using Wikipedia is provided by Sorin A. Matei, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Purdue University, he suggests:

• Read the text carefully. Misspelling or poor grammar in Wikipedia entries could indicate that the information was added by a sloppy contributor.
• Check for missing well-known features of a particular story or concept.
• Value statements or citations that aren't credited are almost always suspicious.
• When Wikipedia entries justify value or factual statements by making reference to specific sources, the authority of the sources should always be checked.
• The Wikipedia label "controversial" posted at the top of the article might indicate that the topic has created conflict and debate.

Boomers - one thing in common

Boomers are that massive population wave moving ever closer to senior status. It is amazing and sometimes disconcerting how much we think alike. A commentary that offers insight into one of the causes of this similarity is provided by Newsweek's David Noonan. He offers observations on Boomer-Humor in this editorial piece. He begins by recalling an irreverent Mad magazine cover with Alfred E. Neuman, the iconic simpleton of Mad, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the saying - What My Lai? To many boomers this is provocative on many levels.

Noonan goes on to discuss how having few TV channels perhaps gives this age group the most common points of reference of any generation. He cites examples from Saturday Night Live, Mad magazine, and counter-culture comedians like Shecky Green, The Smother's Brothers, and many more. In his four page essay, Noonan gives you something to smile at and something to think about.

From the Vine

The American Institute of Wine & Food ( AIWF) is an on-line resource for anyone who enjoys great cuisine and wine. AIWF facilitates the experience for wine and food enthusiasts by introducing them to renowned chefs, winemakers, authors, culinary historians, and food producers. There are 27 chapters in major cities across the United States and over 5,000 members. As of January 2007, their web site featured articles on heirloom tomatoes, Texas barbeque, kitchen gardens, and state laws regarding the shipping of wine.

They also recommend that interested readers check out the University of California, San Diego’s AIWF Collection that includes more than 3,400 volumes and is housed in the Mandeville Special Collections Library and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University - Schlesinger Library Culinary Collection that includes close to 15,000 titles.

     Things You Can't Do Without - maybe

A 2006 survey conducted by the Washington Post, The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, and Harvard University asked 2000 randomly selected adults which household items they considered a necessity (can't live without) versus a luxury. The items selected help make everyday life more productive, more convenient, more comfortable, more efficient or more entertaining. The results are compared with the same questions asked a decade ago.

So, what did they find? The highest ranking must have was a car followed closely by a clothes washer. At the bottom of the list with only 3% was an iPod. The consistent theme from 1996 to 2006 was an increase in the number of must-have items. Younger voters and those with advanced education were more inclined to have-to-have a cell phone, a computer, and high speed internet access. On the other hand more older adults felt they must have air conditioning, dishwashers, and clothes washers and dryers.

Not surprisingly, the more affluent folks must have more items on the list. Rural residents required fewer items than their urban counterparts. In general there was no significant gender or ethnic differences. One interesting finding was that although 98% of the voters owned a television, only 64% felt that it was a necessity. You can read the entire survey at this Pew Research site.

Breathing Easier in Winter

With spring and summer a pollen just a memory, it does not seem fair that you have allergies in winter, too. But, although the end of the pollinating season is good news for people with hay fever, those who are sensitive to mold spores may have to wait to find relief. Allergy to mold spores can be more of a problem than pollen allergy because mold grows anywhere and is not limited to a single season. Drs. Stewart and Resnick offer these 10 tips to make the winter months more bearable for allergy sufferers.

Switching Partners - Food Substitutions

If one of your New Year's resolutions was to eat healthier, this information from Mayo Clinic on food substitutes may be helpful. The articles makes recommendations on fat, sugar, and sodium substitutes. Although you have probably been told about or even tried many of these, you may find some new ideas here. The content is from the traditional school of dieting that cuts fats using low-fat, commercial replacements. So, this is not a site that caters to the low-carb dieters among us.

What's the Matter with Me?

A useful and education offering from Mayo Clinic is their symptom checker. Using a series of questions, you enter symptoms and get information on possible causes. You begin by entering your primary symptom such as: abdominal pain, dizziness, hip pain etc. The system then asks you clarifying questions. The questions aid the differential diagnostic process.

For example, if your primary symptom was dizziness, the system asks you to provide additional information on how the symptom manifests itself, what seems to trigger the dizziness, and if any other symptoms accompany it. Each question is answered by selecting among options. When you have provided the additional information, you submit your question and several potential diagnoses appear. The guide will help you figure out what's happening, if you need to see a physician, and will give you some thoughts on what you should tell your physician.

A Data Point on Heart Disease Prevention from the World of Alternative Medicine

Hardening of the arteries and subsequent coronary artery disease is the biggest single threat to all our lives. Heart disease will kill 40 percent of us, and those of us who don't die from it may be affected by arteriosclerosis in the form of decreased mental capacity or decreased blood flow to vital organs. Recent studies have indicted homocysteine for its negative action on arteries. Supplementing your diet with B6, folic acid and B12 has been recommended.

Now there are indications that chromium and magnesium deficiencies may also play a role. You can check out the science and the recommendations from the Heart Disease - Beyond Cholesterol article.

Watching Patient Safety

A picture is sometimes worth a lot of text. Now you can view a special podcast from the Federal Drug Administration's Patient Safety Information site. You can stream video for either Real Player or Windows Media Player. There are monthly broadcasts from 2002 - through current. When you open the main site, you can select "search broadcasts" at the top of the page. Then enter a search topic or just press enter to see all topics. The briefings are short discussions that cover timely topics of interest. For example the June and July podcasts include information on:

• The new Parkinson's skin patch
• Guidelines for MRI safety
• Food education safety for children
• Avian flu vaccine
• Buying prescription drugs on line

For those who want to read the information, there is also a transcript with each broadcast that you can download for later review.

Health Savings Accounts - Should You?

A health savings account (HSA) is an account into which you deposit tax-free money to be used for future medical expenses. Health savings accounts were developed in 2003 and are part of a larger trend in consumer-directed health care. If you are thinking about establishing a Health Savings Account, here is a list of pros and cons from the Mayo Clinic. For more information you can read entire article.

Supporters and critics of HSAs have different takes on the pros and cons of HSAs:

     A Little Science and A Lot of Fun

Learning is good. Even as you move out of the fast lane, you should enjoy learning about new and interesting topics. Now you have some help from Indiana University. They have put together short (2 minute) presentations on a wide variety of science subjects. You can read the brief text or listen to a broadcast of the information. There is a library of 100's of presentations that include titles like: "Mapping Wildfires", "Vitamins", "An Educated Palate", and "Sleeping with Plants". And, those are just on the first page.

Healthy Summer Recipes

In the summer, you want easy to make recipes that will not take time away from fun nor heat up the kitchen. But you also want the food you fix to be healthy for you and your family - not a cop out to McDonalds or Dominos. Mayo Clinic is there for you. They have created minimalist recipes for the summer season that include fresh ingredients and not a lot of work. You can select from grilling greats, main meal salads, or sandwiches and wraps. There is also a special section for entertaining.

Bon Appetit!

Checking Moles - Saving Lives

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has written this booklet to help you learn more about common moles and unusual ones called dysplastic nevi or atypical moles. This booklet shows what moles look like and explains how they may be related to melanoma, a type of skin cancer. It describes the signs of melanoma and explains how you can check your skin for moles that might be cancerous. It also explains why and how you can protect your skin. The back of the booklet has several pictures to assist you in identifying moles that should be reviewed by your physician. You can review on line, print, or download a PDF file of this information.

The Graying Population - What is it like?

The National Institute on Aging has made available their most recent publication - The Health and Retirement Study. The report paints a portrait of America’s older adults, helping us learn about this population’s physical and mental health, insurance coverage, financial situations, family support systems, work status, and retirement planning. The 108 page booklet is chock full of text and visual data about the population over 50 years of age, based on interviews and available data. You can view the report on-line or down load a PDF version to read at your leisure.

Money and Work

Auctions from General Services Administration

The General Services Administration (GSA) is offering electronic solutions to streamline and enhance the management of surplus Federal assets. The GSA Auctions® website offers the general public the opportunity to bid electronically on a wide array of Federal assets. The auctions are completely web-enabled, allowing all registered participants to bid on a single item or multiple items (lots) within specified timeframes. GSA Auctions® offers Federal property assets ranging from commonplace items (such as office equipment and furniture) to more select products like scientific equipment, heavy machinery, airplanes, vessels and vehicles.

FREE Accounting software for your small business

Microsoft's Office Accounting Express 2007 is tailored to small business. It can handle invoicing, payroll, profit and loss reporting, and more. It also includes easy access to eBay, PayPal and credit card processing services. Office Accounting Express 2007 is compatible with other Office programs. For example, it allows you to customize forms such as invoices using Word. It can synchronize with contact information stored in Outlook. It can also work with data from QuickBooks, Money, Excel or Access. Best of all, Office Accounting Express 2007 is free. Microsoft aims to turn you onto the Professional edition of the program where it adds features such as Form 1099 reports and forecasting tools. But the upgrade is not required.

How much will that loan REALLY cost?

This mortgage calculation site does more than just calculate mortgage interest rates. They have over 100 different calculators to help you make decisions about refinancing, home equity loans, 2nd mortgages, debt consolidation, car loans, and many more. There are also news features and articles that provide financial decision guidance. The site calculators are easy to use and you can move from the calculator to getting bids from various lenders.

What you need to know about SEO

If your new or existing business will use the world wide web to sell products or services, then you need to know about SEO - Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the activity of optimizing web page content in order to make it more search engine-friendly, thus getting a higher positions in search results. You want high rankings from search engines because that is the most likely way that potential customers will find you. For example, if you are selling Organized Blue Widgets, when a user types those words into a search engine, you want your site to come up as being responsive to their quest. You would also like to be on the first page of search results for Blue Widgets Organization. Research has shown that most people will not look beyond the first page of hits from a search engine, such as Google, so that is where you want to be. SEO is an entire professional activity for some people and organizations. However, you can understand the basics by reviewing strategies to improve the ranking of your website. The SEO Tutorial from The Webconfs is a very good place to begin your education about SEO.

Setting up your home office

Your home office needs to help you be as productive as possible. That does not mean that you need to buy all new equipment or the fanciest furniture you can find, but it does mean that there are basic things you need to have readily available to you. Home-based Business Opportunities has given a lot of thought to setting up your home office and here is what they recommend.

Guidance on starting a new business

If you are thinking of starting your own business as a way to transition into a different lifestyle, you can received some useful guidance from Entrepreneur. com. The site provides what they call start-up kits which are pages of advice on starting various small businesses. Their guides include: food related businesses, retail businesses, maintenance, internet, personal services, and business services. For each main category, there are detail examples. For each specific example, there are pages of advice. So for example if you were thinking of becoming a business consultant, you can read suggestions on: what tasks are involved, how to locate and hire staff, how to market your organization, and dealing with income and billing.

SCORE helpful advice on your small business

SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" is a nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small businesses nationwide. SCORE is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration
with 389 chapters throughout the United States and 10,500 volunteers. Both working and retired executives and business owners donate time and expertise as business counselors. SCORE was founded in 1964. The SCORE web site offers a search utility on topics of interest and newsletters that provide up to date information on trends and business advice.

Help from the Wisdom Mountain

One more entry in the "start up business" arena is none other than the quintessential business publication - The Wall Street Journal. Launched last month, WSJ has a section (free) and newsletters on entrepreneurship - WSJ.com/Entrepreneur replacing the previous StartupJournal.com. Sections of the site include financing, startup, technology, and many small business links.

A Lighter Moment is Working from Home

In my previous corporate life, I had several Dilbert cartoons stuck onto my cubicle walls. Many times it seemed that Dilbert captured the dilemmas, joys, and frustrations of corporate life. This is a link to a recent Scott Adams (Dilbert's creator) interview with CNN on his life today. Here is an excerpt: "I start at 5 usually, 5 in the morning. I just walk across the street in my flip-flops and pet my cat for 10 minutes so she won't bother me for the next few hours. There's kind of a toll you have to pay with a cat; if you don't pet her for 10 minutes she'll bother you for six hours. So pet the cat, get a diet Coke, eat a banana and sit down and start writing my "Dilbert" blog -- that takes usually from 5 till 7 in the morning. Then I do typically two cartoons. I do them in rough form and I'm usually done with those by 10 or 11. Then the rest of the day is whatever I have going on, which is typically contracts and paperwork and licensing and conference calls and taxes and administrative stuff. And sometimes I have time to finish up the cartoons I started in the morning. So I do all the creative stuff I do before noon usually."

Updated Survey Data on Working Mothers

In the span of the past decade, full-time work outside the home has lost some of its appeal to mothers. This trend holds both for mothers who have jobs and those who don’t. Among working mothers with minor children (ages 17 and under), just one-in-five (21%) say full-time work is the ideal situation for them, down from the 32% who said this back in 1997. Fully six-in-ten (up from 48% in 1997) of today’s working mothers say part-time work would be their ideal, and another one-in-five (19%) say she would prefer not working at all outside the home. Pew Research provides new survey data about women and work in their article, "Fewer Mothers Prefer Full-time Work".

Managing your money for and in retirement

You are probably going to have a longer retirement than their parents. You may choose to work part-time, volunteer for organizations you believe in, travel and finally get to all those hobbies and projects you have been waiting to do. But a longer retirement also means more years of money going out and little or no money coming in. So, you need a strategy to deal with funding the rest of your life. The Federal Deposit Insurance Company - the same guys who protect your savings have some guidance.

In their publication, Fiscal Fitness for Older Americans, they provide suggestions and information on helping your money last, avoiding frauds, and simplifying your finances. The 16 page booklet has good advise even those for whom retirement is in the distance.

Funding your new business

Perhaps your dream as you have reached the fifth decade of your life is to start your own business. You have some great ideas and you have learned what works and what does not in your chosen field. When you start a new business, you also need money to get it off the ground. You need the money to rent or purchase space for the business, furniture and equipment, supplies, professional fees such as legal and accounting. If you don't want to tap your savings for these up front costs, there are several places where you can get the money that a new business needs. How Stuff Works - Getting Capital provides information on getting start-up capital. This article introduces you to debt capital and equity capital. Suggestions on determining what you need and your options are all covered in this 13 page booklet.

Putting the wage gap in perspective

Yes, working women earn about 77% of the wages than men make in the workplace. But that is NOT the whole story according to Carrie Lucas of the Washington Post in her article published in April, 2007. Ms. Lucas maintains that many of the relevant factors that affect pay -- occupation, experience, seniority, education and hours worked are not included. Nor do the numbers take into consideration the different role that work tends to play women's lives.

"In truth, I'm the cause of the wage gap -- I and hundreds of thousands of women like me. I have a good education and have worked full time for 10 years. Yet throughout my career, I've made things other than money a priority. I chose to work in the nonprofit world because I find it fulfilling. I sought out a specialty and employer that seemed best suited to balancing my work and family life. When I had my daughter, I took time off and then opted to stay home full time and telecommute. I'm not making as much money as I could, but I'm compensated by having the best working arrangement I could hope for."

You can read the entire article at here.

Retirement planning is not mysterious - it is just hard

The US Department of Labor wants to help you plan for your retirement. In their 62 page booklet, Taking the Mystery out of Retirement Planning, they cover tracking today's and future money needs, and provide worksheets to estimate monthly expenses over the next 30 years. They also provide you with suggestions on making your money last through your retirement years and resources to help you plan and save what you will need.

2007 Tax changes that may help you

It is that time of year when everyone is completing or scheduling the completion of their tax returns. There were some changes made to the 2006 tax code that provide credit for improving energy efficiency in your home or car. 2007 Tax Changes from the Federal Consumer Information Center (FCIC) gives you information about these changes. Another opportunity to make new deductions is the Telephone Excise Tax Refund. This refund is a one-time payment available on your 2006 federal income tax return. It is designed to refund previously collected long distance telephone taxes. Taxpayers can choose to receive a standard refund amount (between $30 and $60) based on the total number of exemptions claimed on their 2006 tax return, or you can submit phone bills from March 2003 through July 2006 along with Form 8913 to claim the actual amount.

Saving money with on-line shopping

Shopping online gives you both convenience and good deals on products you want. You may choose to shop only at on-line retailers with whom you have also shopped at their brick and motor stores. Or, you may have a list of favorite online-only retailers. To save money when you are looking for a specific item, you also should consider new retailers because they may be willing to offer you special deals to gain your business. Before you buy from a new-to-you retailer, you may want to check out the Online Shoppers Survival Guide by Jacquelin Lynn for guidance. Chapter Two of her book is available online for your review.

When you are intending to buy a specific item online, Ms. Lynn suggests several websites that provide online coupons including:

• Able Shopper
• Deal Catcher
• Coupon Chief

There are many sites that have coupon listings. You can find more by searching the web for coupons AND the item name using your favorite search engine.

Keeping your work team in touch

The web can do wonderful things to help keep us working in harmony. In today's business world - even the small business one - it maybe time to incorporate web-based tools and communication - to move beyond email. The Web offers tools that allow groups to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets, and to build libraries of reference materials, project documents, and shared to-do lists. For example, free applications from Google help organizations set up private-label versions of several of Google's collaboration services, including Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk chat. Some ideas for collaboration are presented in this article from Forbes.

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If you think you are working more - you probably are

It's a feeling shared by many Americans who know that simply working hard isn't enough anymore. To get ahead, a 70-hour work week is the new standard according to Sylvia Ann Hewlett from Harvard Business Review's Center on Work-Life Policy. The text is pay-for-view article in the December 2006 HBR article on "Extreme Jobs". If you do not want to pay for the entire article, you can listen to an in depth interview with the author on the 14 December 2006 podcast hosted by Paul Michelman.

The study found that 1.7 million people consider their jobs and their work hours extreme, entailing work weeks of 60 or more hours and having at least five of ten extreme work characteristics--such as tight deadlines and lots of travel. What emerges from their research is a complex picture of the all-consuming career--rewarding in many ways, but not without significant danger to both individuals and society. Key findings include: Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said their work pressures are self-inflicted. Nationally, 70 percent, and globally, 81 percent, say their jobs undermine their health in terms of exercise, diet and the impact of stress. Nationally, 46 percent, and globally, 59 percent, say their work schedule gets in the way of their relationships and nationally, 50 percent, say it affects their sex life.

Why corporations should be environmentally responsible

The nobel laureate Milton Friedman maintained that the job of business was to make a profit. More recently, some companies have included in their mission statements perceived obligations to civil society and the planet - a very different perspective from profit only. Is it possible that in today's business world, these two opposing views will need to be united?

According to Andrew Zolli in his Business 3.0 essay for Fast Company, "there are several reasons why this is so, but the first should be obvious to any but the most hardened anti-environmental skeptic: If we don't do something soon, we're screwed. A quick (and necessarily depressing) look at the numbers suggests that supplies of our most basic commodities--potable water, fossil fuels, arable land, clean air--as well as critical industrial commodities such as aluminum, steel, and even silicon, are all under stress." What can corporations do? To read this timely and interesting essay, click here. Be aware, you will need to click to by-pass the initial advertising screen.

Removing some of that workplace stress

Work can be stressful. You can even be stressed out before you get to the office through the 45 minutes or more of traffic. Once there, you may have no respite. The New Scientist has some suggestions on decreasing the stresses in your workplace and improving productivity including:

• Organizing work space with identifiable individual space but visual interaction
• Placing coffee and sustenance in a group area where even those with individual offices will be forced to interact
• Providing quiet space for periods of concentrated effort
• Taking control of some aspects of your work life whether that is hours, personal days, scheduling breaks
• Being social - but not too much
• Learning to switch off - the email, the blackberry, the voices in your head

The IRS and Your Home-based Business

You want to work from home to avoid traffic gridlock. Good idea!More Americans than ever are leaving home from 5 to 6:30 a.m. to beat the traffic. But if you want to work from home to get the income tax breaks of a home office, be careful. The home-office deduction lets you deduct a portion of your mortgage interest or rent, utilities, insurance and repairs to your home. In a fact sheet issued in September, the IRS said that understated business income and overstated business expenses are "an area where compliance is a concern". Translation: you're more likely to be audited if you claim the home-office deduction.

A couple of points to keep in mind: if you're an employee of a company, you can't claim the deduction unless you work at home at the convenience of your employer. People who work from home because their employers don't want to provide them with office space are eligible to deduct some of their home-office expenses. If your employer does provide you with an office or a cubicle, you don't qualify, even if you work from home most of the time.

Home-office expenses are categorized as miscellaneous expenses on Schedule A, Form 1040. To be eligible, those expenses must exceed 2 percent of your adjusted gross income. If you're self-employed, your deductions aren't subject to the adjusted gross income floor. Your expenses are tallied up on Form 8829 and filed with Schedule C. To file a Schedule C as self employed, your home office must be used "exclusively and regularly" for business. What's deductible provides additional guidance on home office expenses.

Protecting Your Future from Pension Plan Changes

The impact on traditional pension plans from changes in pension law will impact you most if you are over 50. Although some companies such as General Motors and DuPont continue to offer fixed, guaranteed pensions, many next generation organizations do not. As of year-end 2005, slightly more than half of the nation's largest 1,000 corporations still sponsored defined benefit plans. Even if your company still has a defined benefit plan, you are not safe.

Employers have the right to freeze defined benefit plans. And when a plan is frozen, considerable damage is done to someone who has spent most of a career at one company but is 10 to 15 years away from retirement. If you haven't already, you should figure out just what you'll be left with if your employer freezes your plan. You can check your potential benefit impact using this table from Forbes.

The risk is tangible. Eighteen percent of the 1,000 largest companies with defined benefit plans had, as of last December, frozen at least one of their plans, with the majority of those freezes occurring in 2004 or 2005, according to consultants Watson Wyatt Worldwide. An employer can't legally take away pension benefits workers have already earned. And most companies, when freezing a plan, also beef up their contributions to employees' 401(k)s. It may surprise you how little of the value of a defined benefit accrues in the first 25 years - so be prepared.

Can Your Blog be the Beginning of a New Career?

Blogging can be transformative. Blogs can lead to full-time conventional employment, but they can also build your contact base and provide a demonstration of your skills for self employment. Potential employers, like everyone else, are checking out potential hires on the Internet. Writing a blog that reflects your knowledge and thoughtfulness could improve your chances as a candidate and offers potential employers a sense of who you are. Don't forget your Google ranking. You want potential employers to find your site and see the good things to say. So be smart in selecting your blog name and use at least 5% search engine optimized keywords in your writing. You can read some success stories from folks who used their blogs to further their careers in the Fast Company article.

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Beware of Burnout - It Can Do You In

Recent research suggests that burnout is an intermediate step in the relationship between job strain and depression. Workers with high levels of job strain are at increased risk of burnout, which seems to explain the relationship between job strain and depression, reports a study in the October Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM). A report from Finnish investigators found that workers with high scores for exhaustion and cynicism and low scores for professional effectiveness were considered to have burnout.

In the Finnish study twenty-eight percent of workers met the study's definition of burnout. Burnout was more common in older workers, those who were unmarried, or had manual occupations. High alcohol use, physical inactivity, being overweight, and having a physical or mental illness increased the risk of burnout. High job strain was present in 23 percent of workers, and was the most important risk factor for burnout. After adjustment for other factors, workers with high job strain were seven times more likely to be "burned out" than those with low job strain. High job strain was also the strongest risk factor for depression. Workers with high job strain were four times more likely to have depressive symptoms and 70 percent more likely to score in the "clinically depressed" range. Although the full article is for-purchase from the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, an excellent summary is available from News Wise.

Is Telecommuting for You?

Intrigued by the idea of working at home in a job? Millions of people each year surf the Internet to find the perfect work-at-home job only to be overwhelmed by the number of scams and work-at-home schemes. One of the first steps to finding a legitimate work-at-home job is to understand what telecommuting is all about. Below are the answers to the top ten telecommuting questions including: What jobs are best suited for telecommuting? Do telecommuter's get salaries and benefits? Where can telecommuting jobs be found? To see the answers, link to: 10 Telecommuting Questions Answered

You can improve your credit score

If you've ever applied for a credit card, a personal loan, or insurance, there's a file about you. This file is known as your credit report. It is contains information on where you live, how you pay your bills, and whether you've been sued, arrested, or filed for bankruptcy. Consumer reporting companies sell the information in your report to creditors, insurers, employers, and other businesses with a legitimate need for it. They use the information to evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, or a lease.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation's consumer protection agency, has written this booklet to help explain how to build a better credit report. It has six sections:

• Explains your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair and Accurate
• Credit Transactions Act
• Tells how you can legally improve your credit report
• Offers tips on dealing with debt
• Cautions about credit-related scams and how to avoid them
• Offers information about identity theft
• Lists resources for additional information

Home Office Deduction Rules of the not-Road

Some people believe that if you claim a home office deduction, you are more likely to be audited by the IRS. Even if this belief is correct, if you follow the rules, you should be ok. First you should know that not everyone who works at home is eligible to claim a home-office deduction. For example, if your employer provides you with an office or a cubicle, you don't qualify, even if you work from home most of the time.

On the other hand, if the only place you have to work is at home and you use an area of your home exclusively for business, then your business expenses are deductible. You claim your expenses on Form 8829 and file a Schedule C. If you do not file a Schedule C but you work at home in an area of a room used for other purposes, then you can probably claim your deductions on Schedule A. Schedule A work-at-home expenses must exceed 2 percent of your adjusted gross income before you can deduct them. For more information on home business deductions, you can read this brief article from the IRS publications.

Preparing for Vacation and Meaning It

You need a vacation. Really you do - everyone does, even small-business owners and entrepreneurs.But not everyone really takes a vacation. Two recent polls show that Americans not only have trouble getting away from work, but they also have trouble staying away. An amazing 45 percent of respondents to a recent Yahoo poll reported that they didn't’t use all of their allotted vacation time. And an Associated Press poll revealed that one-fifth of Americans work while on vacation. So, what should you do to really take a vacation? Read this insightful article from (believe it or not) Microsoft Small Business services.

Protecting Yourself from Scams

It is sad to say, but true, that you do not have to be paranoid to believe that someone is out to get you - sometimes they are; or at least get your money. So, here are two quick reads about checking possible internet scams from ScamBusters and some scams - the old fashion way. Caveat emptor!

The Management Side of Worker Privacy

You know that you should not download pornography from your work computer. You should not send trade secrets in emails. And management has the right to make sure that you don't. But can senior management intrude too much on employees' work lives? Do off-duty employees have privacy rights? Nolo, the legal resource website, has a series of easy-to-read articles on the do's and don't of workplace privacy.  The articles are great for employers who want to understand how not to fall into the trap of becoming a corporate Big Brother. The articles are also useful for employees who want to make sure their privacy is respected. Articles include Workplace Searches: Dos and Don'ts, Monitoring Employee Communications, Monitoring Employees' Off-duty Conduct and Proving Your Privacy Was Violated At Work.

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The author of Alternating Currents is a freelance writer with over 20 years business experience. She writes monthly articles for print publication and various websites on management and lifestyle. She is striving in her own life to achieve the flexibility and balance described in these pages. You can contact her at: Webmaster.

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