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• Budget Baby: Making Saving a Habit

  We all know we should start saving –recession looms, possible layoffs, plus living paycheck to paycheck just sucks. But unfortunately, so does saving. It's such a drag, especially when we live in such a rabidly consumer culture. We're encouraged  to define ourselves by possessions and you can’t pick up a magazine, turn on the TV or even surf the web without product come-ons. Now, I wouldn’t have a job if that were not the case –somebody has to finance the sparkling prose you read here on the 'Derby, for one – but defining ourselves through our stuff isn’t making anybody any happier and means we're going to have a lot of peers suffering through retirement with $200 diaper bags they can't trade in for prescriptions.   Read More... Posted May 13 2008, 06:05 PM by AmyinMotown with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: materialism, happiness, WSJ, budget baby, saving, stuff, priorities

• Work-Life Balance? Don't Even Ask

  For most of us, balancing work with parenting ranges from something of a challenge to ridiculously impossible, sometimes within the same day. Or maybe that's just me. At any rate, family-friendliness or just plain flexibility varies wildly between companies, and sometimes even within departments at the same workplace, and it's a mistake to assume what worked at your old job would fly at a new one. This Wall Street Journal "Career Q&A" tackles the best way to address the issue when interviewing for a new job. Basically, the answer is "don't." It's best to bring it up when you're certain you're going to get the job, or even better, after you get an offer. There are ways, though, to get a sense of the company's  culture when it comes to balance.  For example, ask what a typical day or week was like for the person who previously held the job you're interviewing for. Read More... Posted Jan 30 2008, 03:46 PM by AmyinMotown with | with no comments Filed under: work-life balance, work and motherhood, jobs, interviewing, WSJ