FitSugar

When the Economy Is Down, Keep Your Health Up

FitSugar — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:00:00 PDT

With the way things have been going in the economy, more and more folks are starting to let the stress of the news get to their health and mental health facilities are getting more calls than ever.

Don't let it be you. Instead of getting consumed with the media reports, make sure to create a balance between watching the economy and watching your health. When the news gets rough, take a walk or hike, go for a jog, ride your bike, or play with your kids outside. Find free or inexpensive activities to do that will not only help clear your mind, but will also keep you moving forward on your health goals. Above all, relax. If you need some tips I've got a lot of ideas for relaxation.

Source

Make Your Eating Habits More Sustainable

Camilla Salem — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 10:19:17 PDT

Earth Day is today, and it always serves as a good reminder to rethink our eating habits and cooking practices. There are so many small changes that we all can make in our everyday lives that, over time, significantly impact the world that we live in. While we may not be able to implement all of these changes all of the time, it is important to consider how our actions affect the bigger picture. Find out how you can make a difference when you keep reading.

Is There a Perfect Place to Raise a Family?

BabyCenter — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:58:30 PDT

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Dr. Gwen Dewar about ideal places to live.

Where should I live? I've known this question was coming for a long time, but couldn't do anything about it. I spent the last 18 months fighting my mother's cancer. Now she's gone, our family is irrevocably changed, and I want to find a new place to live.

Part of me wants adventure. I am finally free. But I'm still a mother. My children's well-being comes before anything else.

In an ideal world, I'd live next door to a parenting ally: A like-minded friend or relative who also has young children. The kids would play together. We would help each other in a crisis. We would watch out for each other's kids.

It sounds like utopia to some people. But it should be the norm. For most of human history, families lived in precisely this way.

People lived in small bands or villages. It wasn't perfect. There were personal conflicts and soap operas. But parents weren't isolated, and kids had more autonomy to play and explore.

Now I'm finding it difficult to recreate my own village. In the modern economy, my friends and family are dispersed all over the place. So I'm taking a step back, and thinking first about the locations themselves.

What are the most family-friendly places to live? Like everybody else, I want a place where the cost of living is low, the schools are good, the job market isn't terrible, good health care is available, and the neighborhoods are relatively safe.

I've also got these personal criteria:

I'd like a university town, or at least a place where research is happening and science-minded people can be found.
I want a little rugged natural beauty. If there are no hills or mountains of any kind, I may go bughouse. Ditto for trees. If the winters are cold, there had better be some evergreens, too.
I want some ethnic diversity. It doesn't have to be a dazzling Mecca of international culture, and what really matters most is that people be open-minded. But I'd like there to be more than one important cultural influence in town.
There should be wildlife. Of the non-human variety.
I need a good public library.
There must be places to walk, and I'd like to walk to school without getting hit by a car.
Please let the gods arrange things so that school doesn't start before 8am. At this point, my family would regard an 8:30 starting time as heaven on earth.
I want a natural science museum. A real natural science museum. With dinosaurs. Or at least some extinct mammals.

I know the last demand is iffy. There aren't many museums like that world-wide. But bizarre as it may seem, I pine for a museum. It doesn't have to be next door. I'd probably settle for two hours away. And if there were a really good zoo nearby – or wildlife park – or aquarium - I might be able to make do.

So help me out, please. Does any place fit the bill? Have you struggled with your own criteria? And have you succeeded in finding your own, family-friendly place to live?

More great posts from BabyCenter:
7 Popular Nursery Designs on Pinterest
Remember to Keep Some of Your Non-Mom Friends
10 DIY Spring Home Projects
Is Enjoying Childcare a Woman Thing?
10 Recipes For Cleaning Green

Is Being Single Better For Your Finances?

LearnVest — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:15:10 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

We got to thinking, as we do, about the difference between being single and married . . . that is, in dollars.

Currently, singles make up 49 percent of the American population, and 28 percent of all households consist of one person - the highest levels of singledom in American history.

According to sociology professor and author Eric Klinenberg, singles are supporting the United States economy through discretionary spending that far exceeds both married couples and parents.

From taxes to house buying to paying for a wedding, marriage is either the best thing or the worst to ever happen to your finances, depending on whom you ask. And that’s aside from the value judgments surrounding any discussion of relationships: “But are you happy?”

There are many factors: the little things (like sharing the cost of utilities), government policy (which changes every few years), and the psychology that makes couples spend differently than singles.

But in whose favor do the chips fall? We matched up the two scenarios, head to head.

The Little Things

When it comes to little day-to-day expenses, it’s obvious that married couples have the edge because they’ve sliced their basic costs in half: only one cable bill, one rent bill, one utilities bill. There are also less obvious savings, like skills sharing. A partner who can sew a button or fix a loose doorknob saves money on paying someone to do it for you. These “discounts,” of course, also apply to unmarried, cohabiting couples. A point to the marrieds on this one.

The Taxes

According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis, 51 percent of married couples paid less filing jointly than they would have filing alone as singles, saving an average of $1,300. Interestingly, the more disparate their incomes, the more they saved. Of course, the benefit decreases if you earn a very similar income to your spouse, like 40 percent of dual-income couples today. At any rate, we’ll make that one point in honor of the marrieds. (For more information on marriage and tax brackets, read this.)

Read on for more.

10 Things You Do to Save Money That End Up Costing You More

Wise Bread — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:15:37 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Wise Bread story here on Savvy!

Have you heard of the expression “penny wise, pound foolish”? It’s something I heard a lot growing up, from my parents, and it can have multiple meanings:

You are very careful with small amounts of money, but throw caution to the wind with large amounts. This is akin to someone who eats from the dollar menu every day but then blows a hundred dollars every month on a gym membership that’s never used.
You do things to save money now, only to have those savings cost you more farther down the road.

The second definition is what I’m focusing on today, because it’s a lot easier to fall into the trap of saving money only to have it bite you later on. Here then are 10 things that you may be doing to save money that could actually cost you a lot more in the weeks, months, or years to come.

RELATED: The Case For Expensive Shoes

1. Avoiding Regular Checkups With the Doctor, Dentist, or Optician

It’s something I did in college when money was tight. “Aah, who needs to pay money to a dentist to have him tell me I should floss more?” Well, after leaving the dentist alone for a few years, I paid the price. Avoiding the regular cleanings and checkups left me facing a hefty bill later on when I needed a bunch of costly fillings. I was lucky that I didn’t need root canals or replacement teeth. Now I have a dental plan that covers free checkups twice a year, but even if you don’t, get to the dentist and doctor for health checks. It’s a lot better to pay a co-pay now than pay for major surgery later on. And worse still, it could even cost you your life, especially as so many conditions can be treated if they’re caught early enough.

Read on for more.

15 Smart Things You Can Do With $100

Business Insider — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:15:47 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Business Insider story here on Savvy!

At first blush, $100 is only $100. It's so easy to fritter away on eating out, entertainment, or booking a trip online.

But you should never underestimate how far $100 can go, even in this economy.

"It's smarter to put that money away because once it's in your pocket, it's pretty much gone," says Joel Larsen, a certified financial planner based in Davis, Calif.

No matter where you are in your financial life, we've compiled 15 tips to help you stretch that Benjamin.

Open a college savings account

"A lot of people will say, 'it's only $100,'" says Larsen, but if you were to save $100 a month over 20 years at a 7% rate of return, you would amass $52,092.67. Impressive, right?

Depending on your financial picture, you'll need to shop around to find the right plan based on investment performances, expenses, and tax exemptions.

Andrew Schrage, founder of the personal finance site, Money Crashers, recommends looking into a 529 College Savings plan set up by governments or colleges to help parents save.

"One of the primary benefits of a 529 savings plan is that it offers tax protection from the federal government," he says. "Also, you may be eligible for tax protection from the state government."

Read on for more.

The Best Time Investments You Can Make

LearnVest — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:15:57 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

We all agree that time is more valuable than money.

At least, that’s what we say.

Then we turn around and spend hours watching bad TV we’re not even that interested in. Or 45 minutes on the phone with customer service fighting a $5 charge. Or years in a relationship or friendship we stopped feeling fulfilled by long ago.

But I’m convinced it’s not for a lack of good intent that we often end up treating time as our most fungible asset. (Hey, there’s plenty more where that came from, right? Well, not really . . . ) I think we simply get too busy to think about it, or don’t think we have the resources to make more time in our lives. We do have the resources, though. All it takes is a fresh look at how we really spend our days, hours and moments.

I’ve been thinking about time as a tangible asset not unlike money in many ways, and about ways to invest our time to yield higher returns - better memories, more hours well spent, even minutes that nourish us instead of fly by. After much research, experience and reflection, below are what I found to be the seven best investments you can make with your time. Think of these as blue-chip time investments that can’t go wrong - and that will yield high dividends for a more fulfilled life.

1. Invest in “Life-Extending” Time

Investing time in caring for your health is an obvious one that will certainly yield you more time, literally - in days, months, if not years tacked on to your life. Yet we often take our health for granted until we experience a wake-up call. Proactively invest your time in your health by eating well, exercising regularly, getting plenty of sleep and regularly seeing your doctors. Invest heartily in those non-physical markers of well-being as well: emotional, mental and spiritual health - you will reap many hours of well-lived life from them. Learn the habits of the Blue Zone people, from the regions in the world where people live the longest. Some common lifestyle traits they share? Building in natural movement and activity, lowering stress and being part of a faith-based community.

Read on for more great time investments.

Lil Links: Jay-Z Will Be a Diaper-Changing Dad

LilSugar — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:32:36 PST

Jay-Z talks about changing diapers! - Celebrity Baby Scoop
10 foods to avoid if you have an overactive bladder - Health
15 cringe-worthy things kids say in public - The Stir
Selma Blair is seriously sleep deprived - Celebrity Baby Blog
The economy is starting to affect maternity leaves - FitPregnancy
20 old-fashion baby names that are back in style - Parenting
How to find out you're pregnant before taking a test - The Bump
4 ways not to kill your tot at 3 a.m. - Momformation
A line of luxurious maternity wear that makes mamas feel great! - Child Mode

Why You're So Tired but Can't Fall Asleep at Night

Self — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:19:50 PDT

We are pumped to share one of our fave stories from Self here on FitSugar!

Have you noticed that you're tired in the morning and all day long, but you're so wired at night that you can't sleep? Nurse practitioner Marcelle Pick, author of the new book, Are You Tired and Wired?, has a theory for why you're snoozing and losing.

"When we talk about adrenal fatigue, we're talking about the two glands that sit on top of the kidneys. Without the adrenals we wouldn't live. They're meant to deal with the stress that comes and goes, but in our culture, the stress never goes. It's ongoing, with kids, work, the economy, aging parents, gadgets that we never turn off," Pick explains.

All of this stress causes the adrenals to produce stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. "Too much cortisol actually increases inflammation," Pick says. "A lot of adrenal cortisol disregulates your blood sugar, causes hormonal havoc and causes suppression of the immune system." In fact, if you've been dealing with a few stubborn pounds or digestive issues, it could be due to adrenal dysfunction. When the body goes in panic mode due to stress, you store everything - and therefore have trouble losing weight," Pick says.

Find out how to deal with insomnia-causing stress after the break.

10 Jobs That Didn’t Exist 10 Years Ago

Kiplinger — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:30:29 PDT

We're thrilled to present this smart Kiplinger story here on Savvy!

Thinking about a career change? For the best odds of snagging and hanging onto a job for the long haul, you'll want to avoid professions on the decline in today’s economy (think bookbinders, textile workers and machine-tool operators) and focus on professions whose outlook is rosier (such as health care, financial analysis or social work).

Technology, cultural shifts and changing demographics combine to create new career fields all the time. Here are ten of our favorite new roles for 2011 and beyond, ones that didn't even exist ten years ago:

Social Media/Online-Community Manager

Social media or online-community management is a field made possible and necessary by the gargantuan rise in social networking activity. Sites like Facebook serve 500 million (yep, that's half a billion) users, who share personal and public messages, photos, videos, games and other experiences at a dizzying pace.

Social media strategists focus on building their employers' or clients' brands through the use of social media sites and tools, whereas online-community managers specialize in fostering user discussion and evangelism for the marketers they support. There is overlap between the two fields; one can manage social media tools without dabbling in online community, and vice versa, or the two functions can be combined in one group or person. What does a social media or online-community manager need to succeed? Essentials include great written communication skills, a sense of humor, empathy, a marketing background and lots of experience with social media tools (Facebook, Twitter and Youtube among them).

For more jobs that didn't exist 10 years ago, read on.