Financial Wellness

Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, the author decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job, any job, can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, she left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from...

We may not realize it, but children are hyperaware of money. They have scores of questions about its nuances that parents often don't answer, or know how to answer well. But for Ron Lieber, a personal finance columnist and father, good parenting means talking about money with our kids much more often. When parents avoid these conversations, they lose a tremendous opportunity -- not just to model important financial behaviors, but also to imprint lessons...

At the age of twenty, African American Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son. Motivated by the...

Talking about money sucks -- but so does being broke. Financial journalist Nicole Lapin lays out a 12-step plan in which she shares her experiences -- mistakes and all -- of getting her own finances in order. She talks to you not like a lecturer but as your friend. And even though money is typically an "off-limits" conversation, nothing is off-limits here. Lapin rethinks every piece of financial "wisdom" you've ever heard and puts her own fresh, sassy...

A portrait of the life and career of investment guru Warren Buffett sheds new light on the man, as well as on the work, ideas, business principles, strategies, and no-nonsense insights that have guided his phenomenally successful business endeavors.

"Squeezed" weaves together intimate reporting with sharp and lively critique to show how the high cost of parenthood and our increasingly unstable job market have imploded the middle-class American Dream for many families, and offers surprising solutions for how we might change things. Families today are squeezed on every side--from high childcare costs and harsh employment policies to workplaces without paid family leave or even dependable and regular...

"Ramsey offers a bold, no-nonsense approach to money matters, providing not only the how-to but also a grounded and uplifting hope for getting out of debt and achieving total financial health. Ramsey debunks the many myths of money (exposing the dangers of cash advance, rent-to-own, debt consolidation) and attacks the illusions and downright deceptions of the American dream, which encourages nothing but overspending and massive amounts of debt. "Don't...

A practical look at putting your life together written by the founder of the internationally celebrated website Get Your Shit Together and informed by the author's personal experience after her husband was killed in a biking accident. Part memoir, part hard-working how-to guidebook, What Matters Most inspires readers to get their 'affairs in order' before the unthinkable (or inevitable) happens.

On July 17, 2009, Chanel

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Why is it that women, who are so competent in all other areas of their lives, cannot find the same competence when it comes to matters of money?

Suze Orman investigates the complicated, dysfunctional relationship women have with money in this groundbreaking new book. With her signature mix of insight, compassion, and soul-deep recognition, she equips women with the financial knowledge and emotional awareness to overcome...