A busy workload means less time at home and therefore less time for housework, regardless of income.

A new University of Massachusetts Amherst study finds married women do about one less hour of housework per week for every $7,500 they earn as full-time workers outside the home, regardless of the husband’s income. Married women who work full time may be looking largely at their own salaries — not those of their husbands — when deciding which routine chores can or should get done in their home. So why does the wives’ higher income translated into less time on housework? The reasons could include the financial freedom to hire a housekeeper; the time demands of some higher-paying jobs; different standards of tidiness; more outside activities and therefore less wear and tear to clean up in the house; or other factors.

How Could You NOT Judge This Guy? 10 Popular Myths About Wealth and Luxury

1. The Wealthy made their money easily and spend their money easily. Most wealthy individuals spend far more hours working, embrace far more risk, and create far more value for society than their mainstream counterparts. Even today, for most, it still takes years of immense sacrifice to achieve wealth. Wealthy consumers are therefore very value conscious and discerning when they buy luxury goods and services.

2. The Wealthy are conspicuous consumption machines living in another reality. The minority of wealthy individuals who live ostentatious, opulent lifestyles are often portrayed as stereotypical wealthy consumers. In reality, most wealthy consumers are value creators, who seek quality and value, including authentic prestige, in luxury goods and services. Like many of us, some of their biggest concerns include taking care of aging parents and raising well-educated, generous children. When marketing to them, acknowledge their basic human values and show you understand them as the well rounded and balanced individuals they really are.

3. The Wealthy can’t really define luxury. Put a list of brands in front of the typical wealthy consumer and she, or he, will not only be able to articulate the attributes that constitute a luxury brand, but will also discern differences between brands better than any luxury marketer. The ability of wealthy consumers to define true luxury, individually, and as a group, is laser-accurate.

4. Luxury goods are a far larger industry than luxury services. Luxury goods such as couture fashion, watches and jewelry, get all the attention, yet, are dwarfed by the size of luxury services such as wealth management, travel and leisure, security, etc. Innovative services, including those as basic as nanny services, concierge services, and medical services, aimed at the wealthy, will grow faster and more profitably in the future. Many luxury goods firms are busy transforming themselves into services, or adding services to add value.

5. The Wealthy don’t participate in consumer satisfaction surveys. Wealthy consumers provide feedback and respond to surveys, sometimes more that the general population. Most wealthy consumers are highly educated businesspeople. They recognize the value of feedback and will provide theirs candidly to brands they trust. No metric is more highly correlated with financial success than customer satisfaction. Brands that fail to solicit and measure their customers’ feedback and continuously seek to improve customer satisfaction will become extinct.

6. The Wealthy don’t go online. A recent survey by the Luxury Institute found that the vast majority of wealthy consumers are regularly online. The wealthy work long hours, are more time-starved than the general population, and use the internet more heavily for researching luxury goods and services, and conducting transactions.

7. The Wealthy don’t use ratings and reviews to make purchasing decisions. A recent survey by the Luxury Institute found that over 80% of wealthy consumers use ratings and reviews sites to facilitate purchasing decisions. While the wealthiest may rely on a few trusted experts, many have middle class values and lead regular lives that include seeking information from ratings and reviews sites and publications. The difference is that these savvy consumers steer clear of biased websites and publications and “Best of” lists that pretend to provide non-conflicted advice.

8. Luxury marketers should be targeting only the wealthiest clients. Luxury brands that seek to serve only the $100 million plus net-worth consumer are usually small and often have fairly low profit margins. The truly under-served wealthy, in luxury goods, and, especially in luxury services, are households with a net worth from $ 1 million to $50 million. Their lives are busy, and often complex, and require many types of trusted advice. There are far more of these individuals globally, and growing in numbers.

9. Wealthy clients do not give referrals. Research with wealthy and ultra-wealthy consumers indicates that the vast majority are willing to refer trusted brands to friends and family. Yet, ask luxury goods and services CEOs what their client referral rates are, and the answer is usually well below 50%. This disconnect is due to the fact that most luxury goods and services firms rely on individual salespeople for referrals rather than creating a company-wide referral program. It is one of the greatest revenue opportunities in luxury today.

10. Wealthy consumers are not very loyal since they can go anywhere. The majority of wealthy consumers are among the most loyal customers. Their loyalty must be earned with great service. Ratings show that most luxury goods and services firms have yet to internalize what brands such as Ritz-Carlton, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Bessemer Trust inherently know: That the entire customer experience, from A to Z, must be at a level that makes customers happy to do business with the brand. This is the greatest, and easiest to implement, opportunity for luxury goods and services brands globally today.

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” ~From the movie Fight Club

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. They also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Researchers found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.  By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth.

Most of us want more income so we can consume more. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. In fact, the First World has more depression, more alcoholism and more crime than fifty years ago. This paradox is true of Britain, the United States, continental Europe and Japan. Statistically people have more things than they did 50 years ago, but they are actually less happy in several key areas. There is also the considerable cost of what materialism does to the environment. We don’t yet know what final toll that could take in terms of quality of life and overall happiness. What many people don’t understand is that if we want to save the environment then at some level we have to buy and consume less.

The reason people want whatever is currently “hot” is because they believe it will contribute towards their satisfaction and happiness in life. The word “believe” is the key here. People believe that buying more and more things will make them happy, when in fact research has shown time and time again that this simply isn’t the case.

It’s All About Goals. Don’t plan to fail by failing to plan.

Most people don’t have goals. They have dreams instead. Some 97% of people don’t take the first step, writing down goals. They just keep dreaming. Millionaires, on average, read their written goals daily. This cements them (the goals) into their minds. Billionaires use “the power of three.” Billionaires read their written goals an average of three times daily, three times more often than mere millionaires.

Here’s how millionaires differ from middle class people, according to author Keith Cameron Smith, in his book “Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires And The Middle Class:”

1. Millionaires think long term, middle class people think short term.

2. Millionaires talk about ideas, middle class people talk about things and people.

3. Millionaires embrace change, middle class people are threatened by change.

4. Millionaires take calculated risks, middle class people are afraid of risks.

5. Millionaires continue to learn and grow, middle class people stop learning after they’re finished with school.

6. Millionaires work for profit, middle class people work for wages.

7. Millionaires believe in being generous, middle class people believe they’re unable to be generous.

8. Millionaires have multiple sources of income, middle class people have one or two income sources.

9. Millionaires focus on increasing net worth, middle class people focus on increasing their paychecks.

10. Millionaires ask questions that empower, middle class people ask questions that disempower.

By all means, even if you’re broke, the first thing to do is to get rid of your middle class mindset, which confines you to a life term in your own mental prison of self-limiting beliefs and the low expectations paupers accept passively. Whether you succeed or not, whether you are financially blessed or dirt poor, it’s up to you (not an employer and certainly not the government) to make yourself financially successful. If you’re poor, don’t blame God. Look in the mirror instead. Then get to work.

Brett Steenbarger’s Top Ten Reasons Traders Lose Their Discipline

10 ) Environmental distractions and boredom cause a lack of focus;

9 ) Fatigue and mental overload create a loss of concentration;

8 ) Overconfidence follows a string of successes;

7 ) Unwillingness to accept losses, leading to alterations of trade plans after the trade has gone into the red;

6 ) Loss of confidence in one’s trading plan/strategy because it has not been adequately tested and battle-tested;

5 ) Personality traits that lead to impulsivity and low frustration tolerance in stressful situations;

4 ) Situational performance pressures, such as trading slumps and increased personal expenses, that change how traders trade (putting P/L ahead of making good trades);

3 ) Trading positions that are excessive for the account size, created exaggerated P/L swings and emotional reactions;

2 ) Not having a clearly defined trading plan/strategy in the first place;

1 ) Trading a time frame, style, or market that does not match your talents, skills, risk tolerance, and personality.

Thanks To Healthcare and Energy Costs. College costs are rising faster then the amount of financial aid available.

State university tuition has leaped 40% in the past five years, hitting the three out of four American college students who attend public universities. Tuition has risen 126%(after inflation) since 1984. In 1984, the tuition and fees at a public, four-year college was just 4.8% of the median family income; today it’s 9.5%. The heart of the problem is that states must juggle the cost of funding their education system alongside two other major funding obligations: state-funded Medicaid and the state criminal justice system. When states are forced to make cuts in education, they typically spare K-12 education programs because they’re politically sensitive. State universities, however, have a mechanism for making up their shortfalls - tuition hikes. There you go, send those kids to community college first.

Universities are disadvantaged by the fact that students and teachers must both be present in full numbers in order for education to take place. The quickest way to reduce costs is to put more students in the classroom. Today college costs are increasing and federal student aid hasn’t kept pace. At the same time, grant aid has consistently fallen back as a form of aid. No matter what the cost of college, the impact of the price on students, graduates and their families has grown deeper.

What does this ultimately do the students? Outstripping increases in financial aid and pushes students into more borrowing. While borrowing from the government is still far bigger, students are footing more and more of the bill with private loans from banks and student loan companies. Undergraduate private borrowing grew 12% to $14.5 billion in 2006-2007. Borrowing has increased tenfold over the last decade.

The Expert Service Problem

A few years ago, an economics graduate student named Henry Schneider drove his dad’s old Subaru station wagon up to Montreal. He had heard about a Canadian consumer interest group that had done undercover investigations of auto-repair shops, and he wanted to try a more academic version of its experiment. He handed the Subaru over to the mechanics working for the group, the Automobile Protection Association, for a complete inspection. They found that it had a small hole in its exhaust pipe, a blown taillight and several other relatively minor problems. Mr. Schneider took careful notes. But he also did something that no ordinary car owner would do. He asked the mechanics to show him how to mess up the car in a couple of serious but obvious ways.

They taught him how to loosen the battery cable (which can prevent a car from starting) and how to suck out coolant (which can leave an engine vulnerable to overheating). Armed with this knowledge, Mr. Schneider drove home to Connecticut and undertook a devilish little test. Schneider is trying to answer a question that has occurred to pretty much all drivers who have ever been given the unsettling news that a car needs more repairs than they had expected: Does it really? Or is the garage just looking to make some extra money off me?

Over the next few months, he took the Subaru to 40 garages, loosening the battery cable and draining some coolant before each visit and telling the same story, “We bought the car recently, and we should have had it looked at before we bought it, but we didn’t. It hasn’t started a few times. Can you check that out?” He also asked for a thorough inspection.

In most of cases, consumers aren’t sophisticated enough to make an independent judgment. That’s why they went to the expert. Economists sometimes refer to this situation as an “expert service problem,” because the same expert who is diagnosing the flaw is the one who will be paid to fix it. Anytime you call a plumber or roofer to your home or anytime you visit a doctor or dentist, you’re at risk of having an expert service problem.

Schneider’s results: Only 27 of the 40 garages did mechanics tell Mr. Schneider that he had a disconnected battery cable, the very problem to which he had pointed them by saying his car didn’t always start. Only 11 mentioned the low coolant, a problem that can ruin a car’s engine. 10 of the garages, meanwhile, recommended costly repairs that were plainly unnecessary, like replacing the starter motor or the battery. In all, only about 20% of the garages deserved a passing grade.

The Big Question: How can you be sure you’re not getting swindled? For an expensive repair, a second opinion makes sense, but it will be hard to know which garage to believe. Schneider noticed no performance difference between garages that talked him through what they found and less forthcoming garages. Until some savvy entrepreneur starts a garage-rating business, the best solution may be the oldest one: asking for a recommendation from someone who is knowledgeable enough to distinguish between good service and bad.

Here’s 20 Websites Loaded with Coupon Codes, Bargains, Cash Back Deals, Etc.

If you hate crowds, don’t bother trying to tell yourself this year will be okay in the malls. Thank goodness there’s internet shopping.  Kiplinger.com tested and picked 20 Web sites we think are easy to use and will help you save money this holiday season. Take a look!

Credit card reward cards are extremely popular but odds are you aren’t getting the most out of yours. Some of the greatest rewards your credit card offer are the ones they don’t advertise.

 An interesting article from DumbLittleMan about getting the most of your CCs.

1.  Choose the Right Card   Finding the right rewards card is the first and most important step towards maximizing your rewards. About 95% of all rewards cards offer the exact same reward; 1% cash back. They each package it differently such as airline miles, points, cash, hotel discounts, etc., but the truth is a “point” or “mile” is generally worth 1 cent. There are a handful of cards out there offering 1.25% or 1.5% cash back. By using these cards you’ll earn 25%-50% more rewards than you would otherwise.

2.  Don’t Be a Sucker for Promo Rates   Why settle for 1.5% when I saw a commercial last night advertising 5% cash back? The reason is these promo rates have ridiculously low limits which you’re going to hit very quickly when trying to maximize your rewards. Afterwards they drop to the standard 1%.

3.  Opt for Cash Back
Take the cash back. There’s no sense in dealing with the headaches and restrictions that come with the points or miles when they are not providing you any extra benefit.

4.  Find Cards that Offer Benefits without Spending
Some cards can offer you significant benefits without you ever spending a dime. For instance, the Citi Drivers Edge card offers you one point (i.e. one cent) for every mile you drive in your car. You just send them a copy of your last oil change statement that shows the mileage on the card and they’ll send you the cash. There are also cards that offer a free companion airline ticket (Amex). By using these only when you want to take a trip you can still save 50% on your flights.

Cashing in on Medical Tourism

Medical tourism is a $40 billion business globally, and the people packing their bags most frequently are Americans. Numerous nations–notably India, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia–are making a lot of money off the American healthcare system’s problems, but it isn’t all bad news for the U.S. Medical tourism companies are cropping up across the country–approximately 50 so far–and there’s no end in sight. It’s not just a case of Americans traveling abroad for surgery. Europeans and Arabs are going to other countries as well.

How do the doctors feel about this? Some physicians will say that it’s a great way to offload treatments that don’t pay well, anyway, because the insurance companies will only pay $19,000 for that $100,000 operation, and $19,000, by the time they take care of overhead, isn’t that much.

Americans could contact an accredited hospital in Malaysia directly to find out if one of its surgeons can do a kidney transplant, but because it’s complicated to determine which hospital is right for each person and operation the medical tourism agencies have caught on. A few American health insurance agencies already have pilot programs looking into the feasibility of paying lower costs for people to travel abroad and have expensive surgery, which means that businesses may soon be offering medical tourism packages to their employees. Even more telling, some American hospitals now have branch hospitals overseas to capitalize on medical tourism. Yes! Who can beat having plastic surgery for $5,000 versus $16,000 to $20,000 in the U.S.

Roughly one-third of lottery winners find themselves in serious financial trouble or bankrupt within five years of turning in their lucky numbers

Many lottery winners end up worse off than they were before they won. “A lot of people who win are financially OK when they win,” says Susan Bradley, a certified financial planner who runs a practice specializing in helping people who come into sudden wealth. Roughly one-third of lottery winners find themselves in serious financial trouble or bankrupt within five years of turning in their lucky numbers. For many people who come into wealth suddenly — whether they win the lottery, receive an insurance settlement or an unexpected inheritance — if they have not acquired good money skills prior to this windfall, often they struggle and make poor choices.

Financial windfall coupled with reckless buying and no concept of money almost always leads to trouble. This is especially true for people who decide to use their winnings to create a new business. Sometimes people just don’t compute the numbers. The best thing to do is to hire someone with expertise handling money.

What typically happens after a lucky lottery winner are contacted by a company that actually takes money away from lottery winners. Soon after winning in April 2004, Lisa Arcand, winner of $1 million, said she was aggressively pursued by Stone Street Capital, a financial services company that offered her a lump sum of money up front in return for all or a portion of her $35,000-a-year lottery proceeds. “They call people who hit the lottery and offer to buy the ticket off you,” she said. “The offer was less than half the cash value. But I sold a piece of it — $15,000 a year, and I got $200,000 up front.” The company’s website makes it clear what the firm is all about. “Free Quote, call 1-800-LUMP-SUM,” the home page states. A link brings visitors to a page that offers a variety of options for turning 20 years of lottery payments into quick cash.

When lottery winners come in to collect their prizes, they are taken into a room called “The Winners’ Circle,” where lottery officials talk to them about how to manage their new-found money. “Sometimes the winners listen, and sometimes they don’t,” says Dan Rosenfeld, spokesman for the Massachusetts State Lottery.  “Our customer service people talk to them about the folks who are going to call them on the phone and will try to get them to sell their ticket.” The primary message from lottery employees to winners is this: Get a lawyer or a certified financial advisor.

Example of What Not To Do
When Arcand won, her enthusiasm got the best of her. One of the first things she did was throw a party for friends and family, and it rapidly spiraled out of control. “I spent $3,000 on a party at Mill City — there were 20 of us and people were ordering $200 bottles of wine,” she said. She didn’t hire a financial planner. “I talked to a few people, but determined that putting money away wasn’t worth it,” she said. She bought a house, went to Florida for vacation, got new furniture and bought a plasma TV, she said. Plus, she got her son into Central Catholic at a cost of $10,000 a year. Then she decided to open the restaurant. You can figure out the rest.

Lessons On How To Keep Your Children Wealthy

Some teens with ultrawealthy parents have been known to go prom-dress shopping in Paris, drive an $80,000, fully loaded Range Rover to college and leave their laundry for the servants to wash. It sounds great, but it also has its perils:  What if these children lose their potential to ennui or bad choices and end up squandering the huge sums of money their parents give them?

With $41 trillion in private wealth set to be transferred in the United States in the first half of this century, both old- and new-money families are wondering how to prepare their children for the riches coming their way. The important question is, ‘How do you build confidence and competence in the next generation so they can handle whatever inheritance you leave them?’ Parents may want children to show that they can live on a budget, manage a portfolio, start a career or have a variety of life skills before receiving great sums of money.

Financial readiness comes from parents who act as role models when it comes to their family values, enforce limits and consequences and find ways to offer practical and continuing financial training. In a survey of affluent families, only 27% of parents said they had shared or discussed the family budget with their teenage children. While some families play down their wealth and its history, others incorporate their legacy as an important aspect of child-rearing. Most wealthy parents aspire to raise their children with middle-class values but with an upper-class balance sheet, says Kristi Kuechler, director of the Institute for Private Investors. The challenge, she says, is how to convey the importance of those traditional values of hard work, accomplishment and self-reliance to young people whose wealth could permit them to pursue none of those things.

A family’s charitable foundation or business can be a bridge between generations — and a way to share both family values and financial acumen. Some wealth managers advise bringing in the next generation, starting in the teenage years, to work alongside the older generation. Ms. Kuechler also advises parents to make sure that their heirs receive formal investor education so that they can interact confidently with their financial advisers and ask the right questions. Many wealth management firms do provide educational opportunities for their high-net-worth clients. Some firms may consult with family members one on one. Some parents take financial education into their own hands. Wealthy parents often wonder about when to tell their children about the family’s money — or that they will inherit a great deal of it. Telling them too early may disable a budding career, but telling them too late may squander the time needed to teach them how to manage it.

While independence in children is highly prized, its recommended to promote interdependence in children, too. To avoid siblings fighting over the family fortune when their parents are gone, he recommends that they work together as they are growing up on less confrontational subjects like philanthropy or planning the family vacation.

“I love new clothes. However, I like getting rid of the clothes just as quickly to go buy new ones.”

This lady who appeared on Oprah lives the life of a big house in the burbs, new cars, six beautiful kids, and spending way beyond her husband’s $5,000/month salary. Felice drops $400 a month on Starbucks, $240 on tans and manicures, and her children have no health insurance. “I have six kids and I sell their toys sometimes just because I don’t like them.”

When money runs dry, as it often does, she takes out cash advances. She handles the family finances and hides receipts from her husband underneath a baby blanket in a drawer. When I do shop, I do kind of get a rush. It makes me feel good… but afterwards, though, I get depressed. I’ll buy something even if I really don’t like it because I have to come out with something. How much trouble are they in? $135,000 in credit card debt, $1,700 a month for three cars, two mortgages at $685,000, and are two weeks behind on their mortgage payment. Yikes! Here’s what Suze Orman had to say.

We’re stressed out, we can’t sleep, we’re drinking too much - and it’s getting worse. 48% of Americans say they’re more stressed now than they were five years ago, and the same percent report regularly lying awake at night because of stress, according to a new study by the American Psychological Association.

What is it we’re worrying about while we stare at the ceiling all night? Primarily two things: money and work, the main woes for nearly 75% of Americans. We’re also worrying about making the rent. More than half of people polled say paying the landlord or making the monthly mortgage causes great stress.

According to the report, all that stress and worry is taking a big toll on our lives, leading us to fight with family members, drink, smoke and give up on working out. As a result of stress, 54% of people have fought with loved ones, and 8% say stress has led to separation or divorce. More than three-quarters of respondents say stress is making them sick, from headaches (44%) to upset stomach (34%) and grinding their teeth (17%). 43% claim they eat - or overeat - unhealthy food to deal with stress, while a third say they lose their appetite and start skipping meals. Sad…

Oxymoronic Volunteers

An ever-growing number of retirees and nonprofit executives say paid volunteering is an apt description of the way modern retirees view nonprofit work. And while no one has gathered statistics on the tendency, experts say there is a good chance that the automatic link between doing good and working for nothing has been permanently severed. “People used to say, ‘Here I am, what do you need done?‘ ” said Deborah Russell, director of work-force issues for AARP. “Today’s retirees say, ‘Here’s what I do well, how can you use it, and what will you pay?’”

Economists, behavioral scientists and gerontologists point to multiple reasons behind the switch. For some retirees, economics ranks high on the list. People expect to live for many decades beyond retirement. Many started their families late, which means they may be financially responsible for children as well as aging parents. They may not want to continue full-time work at high-pressure jobs, and for many, unpaid volunteerism is simply not practical. Even the wealthiest retirees insist on being paid for doing good. Volunteer work used to be considered women’s work, so it is not surprising that career women reject the concept.

Modern organizations are leaner and more competitive than they used to be, and the idea that you get paid for performance, not just for showing up, has taken hold. Nonprofit executives say the reverse is also true: people who are paid work harder and seem more committed to their jobs.