This week I had an emotional fallout with a friend I had planned to visit over something as simple as the following:
she wanted me to pay for my own groceries and half of her gas while I was at her house and I thought that was too much to expect of a guest. In fact, I thought it was downright rude. She in turn, thought I expected too much of her as a host. The end result is that we are no longer on speaking terms, but the cause of this altercation was so basic and avoidable had I been in an Aridni mindset when I talked with her: it all boiled down to money.

I was raised in a family where knowing how to be a host was essential to the success of my father’s business. When I was growing up, we regularly had visitors from other countries stay at our house and we wined/dined them, took them to see tourist sites in Boston and did everything possible to make their stay comfortable. Had I not been hospitable towards these guests, it would have hurt our family’s solvency and my father’s reputation. More importantly, as my mother always emphasized, it is important to treat your guests the same way you would want to be treated if you were in their home. It all boiled down to respect. Now, if I am visiting a casual friend, I don’t necessarily expect them to buy me caviar, but I do expect that since I am the one paying for the plane ticket, they will cover some of the other expenses of my visit.

Now, my ex-friend in Virginia has different financial expectations. As she put it, “friends don’t pay for friends… No one owes you anything and if kindness is given, it should be appreciated but not expected.”

I don’t see paying for groceries to be a financial trade- I see it as hospitality, a kindness that is reasonable to expect if you are visiting someone. If I want something special that she doesn’t have, then yes it makes sense for me to buy it myself, but should I have to pay her back for half the spaghetti and meatballs we consumed? What if I get seconds and she doesn’t?

Now, after my friend had explained that she is very poor and sometimes can’t even afford her own food, I completely changed my expectations to accomodate the new information. Our similar, yet contrasting backgrounds could provide a clue as to the discrepancies in our financial expectations of eachother as host and guest. We were both brought up in well-to-do families, but her parents never spent any of their wealth on her–my ex-friend always had to fend for herself. My parents on the other hand, made sure I was never wanting for anything and at the same time, impressed upon me the importance of giving to others who were less fortunate.

The result? My friend thinks that everyone should fend for themselves and I believe in the phrase “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” She says she is too proud to accept “handouts” from people (i.e. a host paying for her groceries) while as a host I would be embarrased to charge my guests for their food. Who’s right?

If the tables were reversed and I was the host, I would most likely not extend an invitation for someone to stay at my house for a week if I did not have the means to be a hospitable host. However, if my budget was really tight and I was close to the person, I might say something like “I really would like for you to visit, but I just want you to know ahead of time that I can’t afford food for two.” That is very different than what my ex-friend said which was “you have to pay for your own food. Every last bit of it.” In fact, as I told her, if she visited me and I was living on my own on a budget, I would pay for her food even if it meant that I had to save up for it because those are the expectations I have of MYSELF as a host. But was it right for me to impose my expectations of myself on her?

The bottom line here is whether it was reasonable for me to place my own financial expectations on my ex-friend and vice versa. Were my expectations of her too high? She certainly thought so; I beg to differ.

What’s really sad is that we were very close friends, but because our financial expectations of eachother were so different, we both percieved eachother as being rude and unreasonable.

My advice: If you are living on a budget, next time you go to the bank, make sure you open a “hospitality” savings account so you can be prepared the next time you have a house guest. Either that or don’t ask for company.

In a society where most people are paying for their goods with plastic, it is very easy to spend more at the “cash” register than we realize. Many of us throw our credit or debit card on the counter without paying attention to the strain on our pocket books unless it’s some ridiculous amount; however, each penny makes a difference. Imagine how much we could save if we paid closer attention to the total! One way to save is to buy store brands as often as possible. 90% of the time, they are the same quality as the name brand and are up to 50% cheaper.

Here’s an example: I was in the middle of a transaction at CVS today when the clerk said “8.75.” I stood there shocked since I was only buying one box of CVS brand trash bags and a Mead single subject spiral bound notebook. Cheap, right? “How did this get to be so expensive”? I asked him. “I thought that the notebook was 25% off.” Apparently, I was wrong. That bargain applied to a different notebook. I decided to not get that notebook and walked back over to the aisle to see if there was a cheaper option. It turned out that I could buy TWO CVS brand notebooks for just $1.00, assuming I had my Extra Care Card handy which I did. The clerk was just as surprised as I was. Instead of spending over $4.00 on one Mead notebook, I got 2 CVS brand notebooks for less than the price of a single brand name one. I only spent $5 something instead of $8.75 and I could either spend the difference on a coffee or put it in a savings account.

The lesson? Carry a small calculator when you go shopping and tally up the goods in your cart before you stand in the checkout line. This will help you “count the bills” and you will have hopefully selected store brands when available. When the cashier tells you your total, you shouldn’t be surprised.

When I talked to my friend Heather* the other night, she had just gotten home from a long day at her nonprofit internship in Virginia and her voice was shaking. “I’m so scared, Danielle” she said. “You won’t believe what this cab driver told me.” Heather was living in an area that those in her wealthy suburban neighborhood in Massachusetts would consider a ghetto.

“Now, I don’t want to scare you or anything,” the cab driver told her, “but I feel it would be an injustice if I didn’t warn you about the area where you’re living.” The driver continued, “I actually cringed when I pulled up and saw you waiting outside for me.” Heather gripped her wallet for the duration of the drive. When they reached her house, he said “I would get your key ready before you get out of the car and run for the door. Don’t stand around outside fiddling for your key. Some of my friends even say that if they were cab drivers, they ’sure as hell wouldn’t go to that area’” Heather thanked the driver for his warnings and gave him a large tip. Not until she had walked up the “rotted, splintered” steps did Heather realize how fortunate she was. Many of the regular employees at her company lived in this area year round because it was all they could afford. Here she was, a privleged suburban kid living on her parents’ dime. “My mom would have gladly paid for a nicer place,” Heather told me, “but there aren’t any good neighborhoods for miles around.” Lucky for Heather, in six months she will return to the safety of her hometown, but for hundreds of people at her nonprofit this was all they could afford.

Heather’s story is not unique. When I interned at the American Cancer Society, my supervisor explained that he wanted to take me out to dinner to thank me for my hard work, but couldn’t afford it. Other friends I have talked to in the nonprofit world can barely make ends meet. The majority of the employees at Heather’s organization earn under $28,000 a year with the president only making $31,385. Heather is only making $50 a week on her stipend and on an average day she spends $15 of that on cabs because she is afraid to walk alone in her neighborhood or for that matter to the grocery store. Therefore, she also relies on private transportation to eat her dinner every night in a restaurant. The catch- she wouldn’t be able to afford to live even in the ghetto without her mom’s credit card.

Why is it that those of us who are committed to making a difference with our lives are forced to scrape by while the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are earning millions in stock options alone? A DC lobbyist I know once commented that the best nonprofit employees either have extensive credentials and are only willing to devote their services if they get competitively paid OR are so passionate about a particular cause that they would be willing to work for free. I do not believe this is healthy for our global society, for it makes it difficult for anyone except the independently wealthy to afford to live comfortably while donating their time to a good cause. If nonprofits want to attract and retain a talented workforce, they need to start compensating their people better.

As a result of her internship experience, Heather who has dreamed of being an animal rights advocate since her sophomore year of college, become more cognizant of the personal sacrifices that would entail. As she put it, “I realized that, in order for me to turn my passion into a career, I would be forced to live in areas that I never imagined myself even visiting.” Heather feels torn between what she senses is her purpose in life and the hard shell of the real world. “I want to have a career that is meaningful,” she told me tonight online, but maybe a nonprofit isn’t the best way to go.” I feel the same way in the area of cancer advocacy. The bottom line- how can the children of nonprofit employees make their mark on the world if their parents are barely getting by? We need to consider the next generation of workers in America and how their college educations will be paid for.

On Aridni, we all want our assets to grow, but generally larger returns require a greater risk to achieve them. If you have a pile of cash sitting in the bank, but are afraid to invest it for fear of losing the principal, you have good reason to worry, but only if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Here’s an example: In the summer of 1999, my father invested the approximately $1 million from the sale of our old house into the stock market only to lose the vast majority of it when the market crashed the next year. My father blamed the loss on the 2000 presidential election and everything else under the sun except for the real culprit: he did not diversify his investments. In addition, he invested (and therefore risked) the entire $1 million. As a result, my father, who is self employed, will never be able to retire.

Not wanting to repeat my father’s mistakes, I recently sought my Aunt Jaymie’s advice on how to manage my own money since she is a Merill Lynch financial advisor and manages the investments of wealthy clients for a living. According to my aunt, there are many options for saving money, some of the most common of which are listed below. Once you understand the rules, it becomes easier to play… and win the game.

Certificate of Deposits (CDs)

What They Are: A CD is a secure, risk free option offered by most banks. It allows you to gain a small return on your money without risking any of the principal. Your money is tied up for a specified period of time- usually anywhere from several months to a year or two. Unless you open a risk free CD, you pay a penalty if you take out the money before the CD reaches maturity.

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**Editor’s Note- The following article does not represent Aridni’s views on Multi Level Marketing. Any company, product, or service mentioned in the following article is not endorsed by Aridni in any way, shape or form. It is important to note that all writers are defined independently based on their own work. This particular piece represents only the particular writer and not the entity of Aridni**

We all want to find meaningful ways to achieve financial freedom outside the traditional 9-5 timetable. Network marketing is a perfect way to realize this goal because it enables you to be a self employed business owner while retaining many of the perks of working for a company.

For starters, your product and all the advertising/marketing has already been designed for you. Whether you are selling Mary Kay, Avon, Tupperware, Amway, or Xango you don’t have to put any time or effort into manufacturing a marketable product. All you need to do is sell the product and get others to sign up to sell it under you. Then, you earn commission or residual income from the sales of people in your down line. No, I am not talking about a pyramid scheme where one has to put up thousands of dollars upfront to get into a company and where lots of people have lost a lot of money in the process. Network marketing is NOT a scam. In as little as a few years, people go on to make millions. The best part is that those who succeed can “retire” in a few years and are taken care of for life. Better than the 30 year plan, isn’t it? (Continue reading this article…)

In 1920, an American woman was considered ambitious if she cast her vote on Election Day. Now women’s voices can go beyond the polls to actually having a say about who gets on the ballot in the first place. That’s because of women’s increased entrepreneurial success in the private sector which contributes the majority of funds for political campaigns.

According to Millionaire Women, Inc., “women are starting new businesses at twice the rate of men“! (7). Furthermore, “the number of women who are now building businesses has increased two-and-a-half times faster than all U.S. businesses, and female investors are the newest market for brockerage firms to pursue” (8). Now, more than ever, successful women are able to make sizeable campaign contributions to candidates who speak to women’s issues instead of hoping their husbands will support the interests that matter to them.

How can you join this growing crowd of female entrepreneurs? Millionaire Women says that information and inspiration are the two prerequisities to realizing wealth (6). In interviews with female Presidents and CEOs, including Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina and Avon Chairman and CEO Andrea Jung (8), Millionaire Women discovered that there are three secrets to success.

The first secret is: (Continue reading this article…)