Make More Money
7 things you can sell at a pawn shop — and what you need to know before you sell
Heading to the pawn shop to dump unwanted items may not seem very glamorous, but there are times when a quick trip can make a ton of financial sense. If you have diamonds, gold, antiques, power tools, collectible coins, or guns, for example, pawn shops offer an easy way to ditch these items and get…
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Why I will tell my daughter to have babies young
I wrote this post a few years ago, and want to give it some more attention, especially in light of the new attention the egg-freezing industry is receiving. See, for the last decade, feminists have been loving the new push for young, professional women to freeze their eggs to give them more flexibility in finding…
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How Millennials are redefining single motherhood
Like every generation in recent history, Millennials are redefining parenthood — and one of the most dramatic shifts is the rise of single motherhood among new moms. Meta trends around women in 2017 are intertwined with the recent surge in the number of single mothers in recent decades. A full 64 percent of Millennial moms report having…
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Should you change your name after divorce? Here’s how ….
Recently a newly single mom messaged me: “Can you please write about a name change after divorce? I don’t want to share my name with my ex-husband anymore, but my two young sons were devastated at the thought that I would have a different name than them. They said, ‘Mommy, we’re a tribe.’ I see…
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When to sell your antique and estate jewelry & questions to ask
Recently, I was chatting with my good friend Sarah, who mentioned that she’d inherited her beloved grandmother’s large antique sapphire-and-diamond brooch. I was surprised to hear this — after all, I’ve known Sarah for years, and see her a couple times per month. I’ve never seen or heard about this knock-out heirloom bling! “Oh, it…
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Your first wife was a stay-at-home mom? Single moms won’t date you
Recently there was a very interesting discussion in my Millionaire Single Mom closed Facebook group (join us!) that addressed the challenges of dating men whose first wives were full-time stay-at-home wives. A number of women refuse. Reasons include: Men whose only example of a long-term romantic partner is someone who cared for the daily minutiae of running…
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Why women need to start talking about money, like now!
Forgive me while I break a writing rule and employ a cliché: Knowledge is power. But, you knew that, right? Then why do you refuse to start talking about money? Talking about the nitty-gritty of your financial life is one of the most empowering things you can do for your career. Sharing salary information with colleagues…
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How to negotiate a pay raise (the right way)
Ever felt like you should negotiate a pay raise? I mean, who doesn’t like more money, especially when you know the market is paying higher elsewhere (or, dare we say, within the same company)? Ready to ask for that higher salary right now? In this post you will learn: What to Focus On: It’s business,…
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Does helicopter parenting make you broke?
Plenty has been written about the drastic downside of helicopter parenting — or the practice of hovering over our children, protecting them from every discomfort and failure, that they grow up to be incompetent, anxious adults with a sense of entitlement so crippling it stands to undo our economy (sorry to blame you for everything,…
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How she did it: Med school at 35, single and 6 months pregnant
Other ways to listen: iTunes ♦ Stitcher ♦ TuneIn ♦ SoundCloud ♦ Google Play Dr. Susan O’Malley is pretty awesome. With her thick New York accent, this lifelong underachiever, secretary with no more than a high school diploma, set out at age 30 to become a physician. She did it. In this interview, I interview this amazing, charming woman who…
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Kickass Single Mom Grant: A doula for low-income new mothers
Other ways to listen: iTunes ♦ Stitcher ♦ TuneIn ♦ SoundCloud ♦ Google Play When Tiara Caldwell gave birth to her twins, she was distraught when hospital staff kept the newborns from her for more than 11 hours. Nurses assumed that she didn’t want to nurse. She felt she was discriminated against because she is African American, and she was…
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Kickass Single Mom: From homeless to chef entrepreneur
Other ways to listen: iTunes ♦ Stitcher ♦ TuneIn ♦ SoundCloud ♦ Google Play Ladies!! I am two months in to the Kickass Single Mom Grant project (I grant $1,000 monthly to a mom who is doing incredible things — whether in business, community service, her family, politics, the arts … essentially a mom who is awesome and…
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Are breadwinning moms good for families?
A few years ago headlines screamed when Pew reported that 40 percent of families with kids were headed by breadwinner moms. This is a prickly social shift: On one hand, hooray for gender equality! On the other, swarms of anecdotes from both men and women quickly reveal that this result of the feminist revolution is…
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Public assistance helped this professional single mom get on her feet
I often struggle with this platform, where I speak primarily to women like me: Educated, professional single moms. The number of unmarried mothers is increasingly affluent and educated, as women gain power in business and earning. But the reality remains that about half of kids raised primarily by a single mom live in poverty (a figure plummets…
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Why you should never count on alimony
Nearly 400,000 divorced women receive alimony — a critical topic when considering post-divorce life, feminism, the pay gap, and women’s empowerment — financial or otherwise. I feel very strongly that every single woman (indeed, 97 percent of people who get spousal support are women) should turn down any opportunity for alimony, aka spousal support, as…
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This is what it’s like to be a single mom in NYC
Here are some of the awesome things about being a single mom in New York City: Dating as a single mom in New York City Nowhere in the world is there a higher concentration of interesting, successful, progressive men — many of them devoted dads. Men in NYC, more so than other parts of the…
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“My drive to get off child support led to insane career growth”
Erica, 32, a research biologist in Washington, D.C., is mom to a 3-year-old son (Erica asked I not use her last name). She sent me this email last week about how she stopped taking child support payments from her ex. So many lessons here. PLEASE READ! I have a three year old son, and his…
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11 things I don’t give a $#!T about since becoming a single mom
I recently threw out the white plastic Pampers wipe box that I’ve had for the 4 ½ years I’ve been a mother. I had my last laugh about that stupid thing. See, when I was pregnant and getting Helena’s nursery together, I searched far and wide for the least visibly offensive wipe box. After all,…
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How single moms can find affordable child care
Babysitters and child care are the costliest part of parenting, and that burden is even steeper for single moms. Even if you figure out how to afford to work, getting out of the house like an adult-ass woman on the occasional evening can seem prohibitive. I hear from women every day who don’t date,…
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Why you can’t afford to ignore your credit during divorce
Credit scores are one of the most critical finances pieces of recovering financially from a divorce. Credit scores are also one of the most overlooked pieces of post-divorce, as I’ve found by communicating with thousands of my dear blog readers. I reached out to Gerri Detweiler, director of consumer education for Credit.com, and author of the free…
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