Tips for Better Living

Science is always revealing new ways that our habits and actions can improve (or diminish) our health. In this month’s issue of Experience Life, I explain how new research suggests that writing can help conquer stress and sleep improves our nutritional willpower.

I also wrote about the insidious problem of mislabeled seafood and how specific planning techniques can improve your happiness, but you’ll need to pick up the January issue to find out the details on those.

Read the stories here and here.

Better Buys for Gift Cards

I started writing about maximizing your gift card dollar a few years ago, and thanks to dramatic changes like Groupon, FourSquare, and smartphone apps, I can easily update the story every year. There are more ways than ever to pay less than face value (or at the very least, boost your buying power).

This story I did for CreditCards.com shares the many ways that you can snare a deal on your gift card—without your recipient guessing that you paid less than face value.

Read more here.

A Buffet of Health Stories

Almost every month, I write a slew of short health pieces for Experience Life. This month, I tackled the effect of long commutes on marriages (rotten), the long-term results of liposuction (rotten), the effect of short writing exercises before big tests (amazing), and the dangers of certain types of honey. You can pick up the magazine to read all the stories, or just click here to read the honey piece. Regardless, I’d add this whole issue to your “to read” list. It’s an especially good one.

Read more here.

Life Decisions

Life insurance isn’t the most exciting financial product, but most families need it. In this story for AAA Living, I tackled some of the common reasons people choose not to get it  – and whether or not those decisions could have long-term consequences.

The interactive graphic itself is pretty neat — check it out here.

Beyond The Four-Year Degree

I’ve written a lot about different ways to cut college costs, and one thing that all the experts mention is doing some courses through community college.

One community college near me, Normandale, is helping make that task just a little bit easier with a variety of partnerships with state colleges, which I wrote about here. I love the idea of making higher ed more financially accessible, because it’s such a critical tool to help people get ahead in life.

Read more about their programs here.

Like It?

Thanks to the web, a lot of stories that I write have a second life—and sometimes even more than that. After writing an automation story package for MoneyWatch, I figured that once I saw it on the website, that would be it. But then Yahoo Finance picked it up, and it appeared on the Yahoo home page on August 1.

Yahoo can bring in some pretty serious traffic, and from what I can tell, this story has resonated with readers. According to the posted Yahoo stats, it’s gotten more than 2,000 Facebook “likes,”  200 tweets, and 1,400 comments (only about half of which are for Viagra or dating sites).

Add your likes, tweets, or comments here.

Automatic For The People

I’ve been pitching ideas to editors for more than a decade, so I feel like I should be pretty good at it at this point. But sometimes, it’s just about sheer luck. A few months ago, I was at a conference where I knew I was going to meet an editor at CBS Moneywatch. I was excited to have the chance to work for the publication, so I did my research: I studied several weeks’ of stories, I wrote down every story that had been written by a freelancer to see what departments were most likely to hire me, and I tried to figure out if they liked things like slide shows, quizzes, or videos. I checked wordcounts, I read information about their typical readers. And in the end, I came up with three sure-fire ideas I was sure the editor would love.

But when I actually met her for ten minutes that weekend, she hated all of the ideas. And so, in desperation, I pitched one last idea that I had planned to offer to another publication. And she loved it.

The result, three months later, is a two-part package on automating your finances. You can read the stories here and here.

Smart Ideas from Twitter

When I first signed up for Twitter, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. While some were creating their mini publishing empires and others were building platforms for books and blogs, I mostly let my feed sit idle.

Eventually I realized it was one of the most effective ways to find out what my editors were up to, so I followed all of my clients who posted. When I read that my editor at CreditCards.com had just put up a story on 6 expenses you should never put on a credit card, I knew the story was begging for a rebuttal. Within a few hours, I’d crafted a query and landed the assignment. The result, 6 types of purchases you should always charge on your credit card, appeared on May 10. The story later appeared on Yahoo’s Personal Finance section (garnering close to 600 comments) and FOX Business.

Newsworthy

Sometimes, a story strikes a chord — and the piece I wrote for CreditCards.com on getting hundreds of thousands of frequent flier miles made an impact. It’s since appeared on the Today Show’s money section, MSNBC, Yahoo, and FOX Business. Links to the story have been retweeted by dozens of people on Twitter, too.

Collecting A Tax Break

All those baseball cards, comic books, and Star Trek figurines you’ve got collecting dust in your basement may be worth a fortune—or, at the very least, a tax break. You probably already know that your charitable donations of cash will allow you to take a tax deduction, but you can also donate your collections, from art to bottle caps, and get a benefit from Uncle Sam. In this story I wrote for Kiplinger’s Retirement Report, I get into the specifics of how to take advantage of this opportunity.

Read the full story here (page 6).