Posts filed as “Retail”
The McDonald’s Worker Budget And The Tyranny Of Personal Finance
A quick note about that McDonald’s budget for its employees published earlier this week by the website Think Progress …. There is a genre of personal finance writing I like to call “when rich people tell poor people how to live.” This is when, as I’ve reported in the past, you see men and women in ...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.Holiday Retail Sales Barely Budge Over Last Year
A quick note on those 2012 holiday retail sales figures …. The Christmas retail sales numbers are beginning to be released, and let’s just say it wasn’t a very merry holiday season for the nation’s shopping sector. According to Advisors SpendingPulse, 2012 holiday sales increased by a grand total of 0.7 percent from last year. ...Read more.The Starbucks Steel Card Is Now Selling For More Than Twice Its Face Value On EBay
If you missed out on Friday’s offering of the limited edition steel card, there is a second – and third, and fourth and fifth – chance for you over on the online auction site eBay. There’s only one problem. The Metal Card is going to cost you. As of the time of posting, one had ...Read more.Suze Orman Thinks You Should Consider An Acura
Say it ain’t so, . Say you ain’t backing up from your long-standing advice that purchasing a new car is almost always a bad idea. But how else to explain Orman’s appearance in a commerical for Acura’s 2012 “Season of Reason” ad campaign? In the spot, which began airing earlier this month, Orman, driving a brand ...Read more.Who Really Shops on Black Friday?
Did you watch the YouTube video of the Black Friday mob banging down the door of the local Tiffany’s at midnight, nearly rioting in their search for discounted Elsa Peretti Diamonds by the Yard drop earrings? Or did you hear the tale of the shopper who pulled a gun on another Fendi seeking bargain hunter ...Read more.Who Killed Hostess Brands and Twinkies?
I’m sure you have, by now, heard the news. , the company that gave us such remembered childhood treats as Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Devil Dogs and other baked foodstuffs that have fallen into disfavor in our more gourmand age, announced today that it would be closing for business, effective immediately. More than a few observers ...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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