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Book Review: Helping Me Help Myself by Beth Lisick

Beth Lisick’s Self Help Analysis Helpful, Fun

I have a great friend named Sarah who works at a San Fran bookstore and just sent me a couple books. The one I was most tempted to start (and finished quickly) was “Helping Me Help Myself” by Beth Lisick. It came out in early January and but Sarah had gotten the proof copy earlier. (So that’s how those book store types have already read the book when it has just come out!)

First of all, I am one of those people people on a constant quest for self improvement. I don’t usually seek help; I often reasearch things a little on my own and mostly go it alone. Beth has summarized all those books I’ve been meaning to read including “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“. I have actually read myself “Organizing From The Inside Out” and “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus“. In other words, I understand why Beth would undertake this. It is a similar reason to why I’ve done this blog: to learn more about money and entertain others in the process.

I skipped (of course) to the financial chapter (Chapter 8) where she consults Suze Ozman, a financial planner who has her own show, column, and is Oprah’s buddy. I’m working on a post about Suze Ozman so I’m not going to talk too much about her now.

The single most valuable thing that Beth got out of her book (and you can too) is to advocating for herself. She called her credit card company, who had put her interest rates through the roof (over 20%). She pointed out she was a loyal customer who could take her business elsewhere and they brought down her rate a bit. She insisted on zero percent and she got it. “In under five minutes’ time, I just saved myself about $80 a month.” she writes, only wishing she had made the call earlier. I think this is a great illustration about sticking up for yourself.

I think in the areas of our lives that we are least confident in, we are afraid to advocate for what we want. Or maybe we don’t know what to advocate for. Which is why we need to make it our business to know at least a little and then become the squeaky wheel with our credit card companies, banks, insurance companies, and anyone else who isn’t giving us a fair shake.

I have since read the rest of the book (the Richard Simmons part ended up being my favorite) and it’s great. If you’re looking for a good read from a funny lady, this is it. And I now understand a few little tricks gleaned from some of the most popular books of all time.

See Beth’s YouTube video…
Hear the NPR piece about the book…

Search Engine Optimization For A Small Blog

Improving A Blog’s Position In Search Results

I like to blog but, as with anything else, there is a certain amount of periphreal stuff to do like networking and techy chores. The last few days, I have been working on search engine optimization.

The more tech aspects of blogging I have been learning as I go. I submitted my blog to all kinds of directories and I added Google Analytics to my page. I’ve been reading lots of Problogger articles. Still I wanted to further increase my traffic. (Who doesn’t?)

I pumped one of my co-workers who is great with search engine optimization for what I could do with my blog. Here were his suggestions:

1) Use “Header 1” or larger fonts so when the spiders are crawling your web site, they know what is most important.

2) Submit your link to search engines (which I actually hadn’t done yet).

3) Choose good keywords. You want ones that people will be searching for but that fewer web sites use. There is a great article about Keyword Research in my list of articles about how it works.

4) Update your site at the same time every day. This is so the crawlers know when to come back to your site. (Spiders, crawlers, and robots are the same thing; you can read more about them here.)

5) Create a sitemap.

6) Use pay-per-click ads (Like Google Adsense) and do other things to increase the amount of links on your site.

Google has some Webmaster Tools that actually help you build a sitemap, which I’m working on now. I’m pro-Google but I’m sure other companies have software that can help you accomplish some of these goals. I hope this was of help and I hope my work on this yeilds me some more visitors like yourself!

Grocery Game Update: Week 3

Saving Money on Groceries

You may remember that I’m test driving what I think may be the most promising grocery money saving web site: The Grocery Game. The month trial for $1 did not motivate me to take any action and I decided that subscribing for two months for $10 was worth a shot.

Tax Savings For Smaller Incomes

I’ve been scouting financial RSS feeds the past week or so for the best money-saving tax tips for the smaller income folks like myself. Here are three that sound like they may help some:

How To Make Crappy Furniture Cool

When it comes to expensive things, I am doomed to hand-me-downs. I’ve never been the type to turn down, in particular, free furniture. The way I figure it, if I can’t afford to replace it, I should seize the moment when someone offers it to me. My parents, garage sales, discount stores, and the dump are a few of my favorite sources.

This is not to say that things remain in the same condition as when I got them. I usually have to do something to them to make them my own. I’ll take you through a few examples of furniture in my house.

Cheap & Chic: Scarves

I’ve been thinking a lot about scarves lately (for one reason, see the last paragraph).

I have about 10 scarves, mostly of the Pashmina variety and I wear them a lot with coats and even indoors. Today, I just noticed I have a stain on my shirt which a scarf thrown around my neck would cover completely. Darn!

Scarves have also been talked about on the blogosphere as functionable fashion and as a new celebrity trend. Personally, I think scarves Maces in Rockland, Maine has the cheapest pashmina scarves I have ever seen. They are $6 all of the time. I would like to think that there is no child labor or anything like that involved. Needless to say, I can’t afford to spend $50+ on a scarf that’ll probably get caught in my jacket at some point anyway.

I have 6 or 7 pashminas in cool colors that I can add to outfits for warmth and style. I’d love to give you the Mace’s link but they don’t have a site. The good news is I did find a similar but online source.

Oh and check out this great video about how to wear scarves. That’s right folks, I’m moving into video.

Photo: Me rocking my brown pashmina

Cheap & Chic: Scarves

I’ve been thinking a lot about scarves lately (for one reason, see the last paragraph).

I have about 10 scarves, mostly of the Pashmina variety and I wear them a lot with coats and even indoors. Today, I just noticed I have a stain on my shirt which a scarf thrown around my neck would cover completely. Darn!

Scarves have also been talked about on the blogosphere as functionable fashion and as a new celebrity trend. Personally, I think scarves Maces in Rockland, Maine has the cheapest pashmina scarves I have ever seen. They are $6 all of the time. I would like to think that there is no child labor or anything like that involved. Needless to say, I can’t afford to spend $50+ on a scarf that’ll probably get caught in my jacket at some point anyway.

I have 6 or 7 pashminas in cool colors that I can add to outfits for warmth and style. I’d love to give you the Mace’s link but they don’t have a site. The good news is I did find a similar but online source.

Oh and check out this great video about how to wear scarves. That’s right folks, I’m moving into video.

Photo: Me rocking my brown pashmina

The Magic of Life: 14 Things I (Almost) Never Have To Buy

Do you have things in life that you use but no matter what they always seem to be there in reserve? I have things I haven’t bought in months (and sometimes years) that still seem to be well stocked in the house. They are barely a flicker in the fire of my budget....

Would You Pull A Lindsay Lohan?

This week, Lindsay Lohan’s nude pictures for New York Magazine crashed their web site and got lots of people talking. It doesn’t take a genius to know sex sells and naked pictures of the attractive and famous sell especially well. The whole incident made me think of...

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