Heal Thyself

Sometimes, medicine isn’t enough. Just ask Penny George, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996. She got the best available care at the time, but she still felt that something was missing. She added acupunture, therapy, and meditation to the rigors of chemotherapy and found that adding mental and spiritual components to her care helped immensely. Now, as a philanthropist, she’s hoping to encourage more systematic integrative health and healing practices. This story, written for the University of Minnesota, shares the components of a range of new programs that are being developed with her help that will bring holistic care to a greater number of patients.

Read the full story here.

Living Dangerously

What would it take to get you to leap out of an airplane? Run a marathon in a game preserve with lions and rhinos?  Flip off of a trapeze 30 feet in the air — without a net? For the people in this story that I did for Webster University’s alumni magazine, it’s all part of a days’s work. From movie stuntmen to student driving instructors, these men and women will remind you why your office job isn’t nearly as bad as you thought.

Read it here.

Jingle All The Way To The Bank

Credit and debit card companies want you to use their cards during the holiday season—and they’re lining up some enticing deals for consumers. From improved cash back offers to free shipping, your plastic can definitely pay off this season.

Offers can be found for nearly every card, whether you carry Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover. Read the fine print and the expiration date and you’ll be able to afford just a little more holiday cheer.

Changing Strategies

Anyone who’s spent any time learning about credit cards knows the cardinal rules: pay them off on time and in full whenever you can. Never just pay the minimum. It turns out that those rules get thrown out the window if you’ve lost (or think you’re about to lose) your job. In an emergency, everything is different, but you should know why the rules are changing. In this  story I wrote for CreditCards.com, experts share advice on using your cards wisely if you get a pink slip.

Read the full story here.

Big Ideas

Macalester College was recently named one of the ten “most intellectual” colleges, so perhaps it’s no surprise that the professors who teach there have some pretty big ideas. For this story for Macalester Today, I talked to nearly a dozen different professors who shared their thoughts on ways to make our society smarter, healthier, and more balanced.

The great part is that you don’t have to read a 250-page dissertation to understand their clever  concepts—they’ve all been distilled to 250 words or less.

Read the full story here.

Split Decisions

Divorce isn’t just emotionally devastating—it’s also often a financial catastrophe. For parents who are trying to save for their child’s college education, likely the largest single expense their kids will ever incur, it’s important to keep saving after the separation.

In this story for SavingForCollege.com, I ask experts how parents can mitigate the financial effects of divorce on their child’s 529.

Read the full story here.

I Feel You

Journalists were brought up on the 5 W’s and the H: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. They’re the questions that every news story is supposed to answer. But too often, there’s a component that’s missing from the equation: What did it feel like? For quirky profile stories, it often seems like that all-important question goes missing.

Until now, that is.

In this story for Minnesota Monthly, I talked to more than a dozen people about what it feels like to do the sorts of things that most of us will never try—whether it’s winning a lutefisk eating contest, finding the Winter Carnival Medallion, or leaping into a frozen lake in the middle of January. Their answers are surprising, riveting, and more often than not, insightful.

Read the full story here.

The Only Way Is Up

One of the perks of my job is that I get to talk to inspiring people on an almost-daily basis. A case in point is the subject of this story I did for Experience Life magazine.

Don was a talented athlete growing up, but got stuck in a sedentary job and developed unhealthy eating habits. When he tipped the scales at 330 pounds, he finally decided he had to change. What he did next was remarkable.

Read the full story of how he changed his life for the better here.

Subsidized Education

We all know how great it is when someone picks up the tab for something, whether it’s your pal who picks up the lunch bill or your company that pays for your gym membership.

But what if you could get others to pay for something far more important—your child’s college education? In this story, which I did for SavingForCollege.com, I examine all the different ways you can get other people to contribute funds to your child’s 529 account. It’s not as hard as you think, and if you’re savvy, the end result could be hundreds, if not thousands, of additional dollars to help pay for college.

Read the full story here.

Two Is Better Than One?