Your 401k won’t save you | Helaine Olen
Most of us have less than $100,000 in retirement savings, less than half what some estimate is needed
Most of us respond to questions about our financial prospects after retirement with sentiments that could be best be compared to the look on Captain Quint's face when he realized he was about to be eaten by the shark in the 1970s classic Jaws.
There is a $6.6tn gap between what we...Read more.
Groupon’s Fired CEO Andrew Mason Sends Memorable Goodbye Letter To Staff
I want to take a moment to salute Andrew Mason, the co-founder and now former CEO of . Whatever else one thinks of his tenure, Mason set a new standard for exiting a job with grace, humor and a commendable lack of finger pointing. In a note Mason sent to employees announcing that he’d been ...Read more.Wal-Mart Emails Reveal Customers Under Financial Stress
One wonders if executives at Wal-Mart Stores ever studied the business wisdom of Henry Ford....Read more.Student Loan Debt And The Wedding Bell Blues
According to recent research, women with student loan debt might be said to have a case of the wedding bell blues....Read more.How Much is that Hip Replacement in the Hospital?
Here’s a fun fact for the week of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show: you are much more likely to get an answer to the question “How much is a hip for that doggy in the window?” than to “How much is that hip in the human hospital?” Or at least that’s one conclusion you ...Read more.Can We Really Delay Retirement?
A study released late last week by The Conference Board reveals that more and more Americans are apparently adopting a retirement planning strategy that could best be described as being lifted from a Beatles song: They are assuming their employers will indeed still need them and feed them when they’re are 64. According the Board, ...Read more.Hair Color and Money Habits
Here’s an idea to cure the savings crisis: just direct everyone to dye his or her hair grey or white. That’s the impression you might get from a survey released today by couponcabin.com, a provider of coupons for online sites, which teamed up with Interactive to determine if hair color has any influence on our ...Read more.Casey Anthony Can Declare Bankruptcy And Expect Relief But Student Loan Debtors Receive No Such Protection
In today’s filing from tabloid scandals you can never, ever escape, comes news that Casey Anthony, who was found not guilty of the murdering her two-year-old daughter Caylee in a 2011 trial, declared bankruptcy last week. Anthony, who is unsurpringly unemployed (would you hire this woman?), claims debts of just under $800,000 on assets of ...Read more.Barack Obama’s Inauguration Speech, Personal Finance and The Quality of Mercy
President today was a stirring defense of the role of government in the life of individuals. It also took on the very popular meme in the personal finance world, that all bad personal finance events are a result of ill planning and extravagant spending. I’m not sure intended to do that. But he did and I ...Read more.The 401(k) And Our Emergency Savings Problem
When it comes to the subject of our 401(k) savings … well, what savings? The dollars we’ve put aside are pathetic....Read more.About Helaine Olen
I am the voice of The Bills, a column about the intersection of money and life, at Slate. At Inc., I contribute to the Spread the Wealth personal finance column. My work on politics, economics, workplace culture and women’s issues has been published in numerous other print and on-line publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Pacific Standard, and The Los Angeles Times, where I wrote and edited the popular “Money Makeover” feature.
I'm the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated, which I co-wrote with Harold Pollack.
What else? I’m a passionate bibliophile, a fan of 1970s pop music and a lover of rummage sales. I live in New York City.
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