I took a month long backpacking trip to Europe during my last year of college. I traveled on a bare-bones budget, staying in sometimes-seedy hostels and using an oversized sweatshirt as a towel when I realized that linens weren’t provided. Still, despite my small budget, I managed to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and ring in the New Year to the sound of Big Ben’s chimes. I visited Stonehenge and Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon. I also ambled through cobblestone streets and saw a Broadway musical.
When the trip ended, it wasn’t any of these things, as interesting and magnificent as they were, that made the most significant impression on me. The best moment of my trip didn’t involve a well-known tourist destination—a grand cathedral or a castle—but a steaming baked potato and an ice-cold mug of ale enjoyed alone in a snug corner booth.
It was here, in a pub called the Eagle and Child, where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien sat discussing literature, writing, and life. These discussions contributed to the final form of Lewis’s Narnia books and to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series.
A simple lunch in this place was profoundly personal for me. The experience reminded me that the essence of a vacation isn’t necessarily jumping from one hot spot to the next. Rather, the best vacations are often rooted in the simplest pleasures and driven by a desire for respite.
Vacation, from the Latin vacatio, has its origins in the word freedom. If freedom is the basis of a vacation, the last thing it should do is leave you frayed or saddled with debt. If you’re planning to take a vacation this summer, start with some basic questions: What kind of vacation will give you the greatest sense of freedom? What is the goal or purpose of your vacation?
You might be tempted to answer the question glibly: To get away. I would counter: To get away from what and why? A vacation simply for the sake of taking one can leave you more focused on destinations and arrangements than on the pleasure that it can bring. It can also leave you overspending if you get caught up in a must-see mentality.
When you start planning a prospective vacation with a goal in mind, you may realize you want to create a certain feeling, which doesn’t necessarily depend on any particular location. If your vacation goals are location-specific, then you can prioritize your spending based on what you want to achieve.
For example, if you want to travel abroad, ask yourself why. Is it to experience another culture? Understand your ancestry? See magnificent architecture? If your true desire is to experience another culture, then you might consider a volunteer vacation, where you live and work in the place you’re serving. It’s a full-immersion experience that can be relatively inexpensive.
If it’s a beach vacation you’re after, start again with the same question: Why? If you’re looking to relax, find a house for rent by owner. These types of homes are perfect for groups looking for inexpensive, beach-front accommodations. You’ll typically find fully-equipped kitchens so that you can prepare all of your own food. You can sleep in, build sand castles to your heart’s content, and stroll down the beach at sunset.
You can apply the same question to any kind of destination, whether it’s camping a few miles from home, a major theme park, or a trip to see relatives in another state. Get your goal at the forefront of your planning, and you might just find that you don’t even need to leave home to enjoy a vacation.
CCCS/ACCE –American Center for Credit Education
Carey Denman
Friday, April 16, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Simple Ways to Create a Landscape You Love
When we moved into our home five years ago, I remember looking at the rolling expanse of dirt, dotted with scruffy patches of grass and wayward thistles. Other more experienced gardeners might have seen a blank canvas, but I felt overcome with landscape anxiety. An impossibly small landscaping budget and a file full of seemingly perfect garden images only made matters worse.
From the start, I knew I had to make peace with Mother Nature. This meant creating a landscape that could bear harsh temperature swings, little rainfall, and droves of hungry deer. It also meant raising my weed tolerance if I didn’t want to institute a serious spraying regimen or commit to hand digging a thousand dandelions.
I didn’t know it at the time, but these obstacles were forming my landscaping philosophy: beauty without perfection. After I got over the idea that my yard needed to be magazine-worthy, I could think about what I really wanted my landscape to do and be.
I knew I wanted a cottage garden landscape, with an abundance of flowers and vegetables and a place to enjoy them. From here, I could decide the best way to achieve this. I haven’t followed a rigid plan, but I have relied on several ideas that have helped my landscape take shape and that have kept my landscaping budget in check.
Spend your time and money on landscaping features that will bring you pleasure. If you need to create a landscape from scratch or want to punch up what you’ve got, start by setting some priorities. What landscape element will bring you the most joy? A lawn that looks like Astroturf? The same climbing roses that grew on your grandmother’s arbor? A fountain, fire pit, or pergola? From here, you can think about the best way to reach your landscape goals.
View landscaping as a process. The best landscapes evolve over time and anticipate future wants and needs—there is no such thing as an instant landscape. I always buy as many small plants as I can afford, rather than buying more mature and expensive specimens. I also tackle one or two landscape projects each year. This year, the plan is to build a roof over a back patio for some much-needed shade and create a small playhouse for our children. Make a list of what you want to accomplish in your landscape and choose the top two or three priorities to tackle this year.
Use materials readily available to you. I am fortunate to have an abundance of natural slate rock that we used for garden beds and paths. The horses in a nearby pasture supply our compost needs. A pile of cedar milled from old power poles became a garden shed and a picket fence. Look around your home and your neighborhood. What is available to you that you can put to use in your landscape?
Enhance what you already have. Paint worn patio furniture a vivid yellow or turquoise, repeating the same colors elsewhere in your landscape. Use specialty paint to splash color on a boring cement patio. Divide plants to expand your plantings. Think of ways you can incorporate existing plantings or features into your plan. Add shutters, painted trim, and a small window to a plain garden shed, for example.
CCCS/ACCE –American Center for Credit Education
Carey Denman
From the start, I knew I had to make peace with Mother Nature. This meant creating a landscape that could bear harsh temperature swings, little rainfall, and droves of hungry deer. It also meant raising my weed tolerance if I didn’t want to institute a serious spraying regimen or commit to hand digging a thousand dandelions.
I didn’t know it at the time, but these obstacles were forming my landscaping philosophy: beauty without perfection. After I got over the idea that my yard needed to be magazine-worthy, I could think about what I really wanted my landscape to do and be.
I knew I wanted a cottage garden landscape, with an abundance of flowers and vegetables and a place to enjoy them. From here, I could decide the best way to achieve this. I haven’t followed a rigid plan, but I have relied on several ideas that have helped my landscape take shape and that have kept my landscaping budget in check.
Spend your time and money on landscaping features that will bring you pleasure. If you need to create a landscape from scratch or want to punch up what you’ve got, start by setting some priorities. What landscape element will bring you the most joy? A lawn that looks like Astroturf? The same climbing roses that grew on your grandmother’s arbor? A fountain, fire pit, or pergola? From here, you can think about the best way to reach your landscape goals.
View landscaping as a process. The best landscapes evolve over time and anticipate future wants and needs—there is no such thing as an instant landscape. I always buy as many small plants as I can afford, rather than buying more mature and expensive specimens. I also tackle one or two landscape projects each year. This year, the plan is to build a roof over a back patio for some much-needed shade and create a small playhouse for our children. Make a list of what you want to accomplish in your landscape and choose the top two or three priorities to tackle this year.
Use materials readily available to you. I am fortunate to have an abundance of natural slate rock that we used for garden beds and paths. The horses in a nearby pasture supply our compost needs. A pile of cedar milled from old power poles became a garden shed and a picket fence. Look around your home and your neighborhood. What is available to you that you can put to use in your landscape?
Enhance what you already have. Paint worn patio furniture a vivid yellow or turquoise, repeating the same colors elsewhere in your landscape. Use specialty paint to splash color on a boring cement patio. Divide plants to expand your plantings. Think of ways you can incorporate existing plantings or features into your plan. Add shutters, painted trim, and a small window to a plain garden shed, for example.
CCCS/ACCE –American Center for Credit Education
Carey Denman
Monday, April 5, 2010
Practicing Gratitude is Worth the Effort
My husband was recently helping me with the spring garden chores, which involved top dressing beds with compost and cutting back the perennials within an inch or two of the ground. He was hard at work on a catmint, one of the most onerous plants to deal with in my garden. Bent over a dried tangle of woody branches, he looked up, pruners in hand, and asked, “Why did you even plant these things?” I responded with my gardening mantra, “Because I love what grows.”
In my prairie garden, where moisture tends to be scarce and hungry deer can be plentiful, catmint is a sure thing. It is tough as nails, blooms profusely, hides the fading foliage of other plants around it, and the deer don’t touch it. Yes, it tends to grow out of bounds, spreading seedlings into the gravel driveway and all along the path, and gives me blisters when I cut it back each year, but it grows—beautifully.
Loving what grows keeps me focused on the good in gardening, makes me grateful that I can sink my hands into the dirt and coax something, anything into bloom. It might take practice, but “wanting what you already have” is a good principle for life. In other words, practicing gratitude is worth the effort.
According to the research of psychologist Robert Emmons, the greatest reward for being grateful is a happier life. In several studies, Emmons asked three separate groups to keep a journal for a period of ten weeks. The first group kept track of what they were grateful for; the second group wrote down what they found irritating or bothersome; and the final group was instructed to write about something that had an impact on them.
At the conclusion of the study, the participants who focused on gratitude, by paying attention to and recording the good things that happened to them during those ten weeks, reported a higher level of well- being; they were generally happier and more optimistic, even sleeping better and exercising more. Other more objective data has shown that practicing gratitude has direct health benefits, which include lowering stress levels and moderating blood pressure.
If it makes good sense to practice gratitude, what’s the best way to do this? It doesn’t have to be a formal exercise in writing things down. It’s really about finding a way that you can acknowledge the good things in your life. At our house, this often happens at the dining room table, where we ask our children to tell us the best part of their day. Just last night, our five-year-old reported, “We got two jelly beans today. We’re really lucky kids.” It’s hard to be a cynic when I’m face-to-face with this kind of child-like thankfulness.
The next time you’re at a stoplight, resist the urge to pull out your cell phone or fiddle with the stereo. Instead, make a mental list of everything you’re thankful for. Or do the same when you’re brushing your teeth or taking a shower. However you do it, make gratitude a ritual. When you do, you’ll learn to want what you have, and you’ll be much happier for it.
CCCS/ACCE –American Center for Credit Education
Carey Denman
In my prairie garden, where moisture tends to be scarce and hungry deer can be plentiful, catmint is a sure thing. It is tough as nails, blooms profusely, hides the fading foliage of other plants around it, and the deer don’t touch it. Yes, it tends to grow out of bounds, spreading seedlings into the gravel driveway and all along the path, and gives me blisters when I cut it back each year, but it grows—beautifully.
Loving what grows keeps me focused on the good in gardening, makes me grateful that I can sink my hands into the dirt and coax something, anything into bloom. It might take practice, but “wanting what you already have” is a good principle for life. In other words, practicing gratitude is worth the effort.
According to the research of psychologist Robert Emmons, the greatest reward for being grateful is a happier life. In several studies, Emmons asked three separate groups to keep a journal for a period of ten weeks. The first group kept track of what they were grateful for; the second group wrote down what they found irritating or bothersome; and the final group was instructed to write about something that had an impact on them.
At the conclusion of the study, the participants who focused on gratitude, by paying attention to and recording the good things that happened to them during those ten weeks, reported a higher level of well- being; they were generally happier and more optimistic, even sleeping better and exercising more. Other more objective data has shown that practicing gratitude has direct health benefits, which include lowering stress levels and moderating blood pressure.
If it makes good sense to practice gratitude, what’s the best way to do this? It doesn’t have to be a formal exercise in writing things down. It’s really about finding a way that you can acknowledge the good things in your life. At our house, this often happens at the dining room table, where we ask our children to tell us the best part of their day. Just last night, our five-year-old reported, “We got two jelly beans today. We’re really lucky kids.” It’s hard to be a cynic when I’m face-to-face with this kind of child-like thankfulness.
The next time you’re at a stoplight, resist the urge to pull out your cell phone or fiddle with the stereo. Instead, make a mental list of everything you’re thankful for. Or do the same when you’re brushing your teeth or taking a shower. However you do it, make gratitude a ritual. When you do, you’ll learn to want what you have, and you’ll be much happier for it.
CCCS/ACCE –American Center for Credit Education
Carey Denman
Friday, March 26, 2010
Limited Resources Don’t Have to Keep You from Dreams
My middle sister is a tourist at heart. She stalks travel sites, enjoys making itineraries and is the type of person who stops to read all the historic markers. If you ever want to know the most strategic way to tackle a theme park, she’s your woman. But she cares about more than the fine details of her destination. She dreams big, relishing the idea of riding an Icelandic pony or floating down a Venetian canal long before she leaves home. Traveling makes her feel fully alive.
I know this because she weaves travel talk into everyday conversation. She listens with rapt attention to other people’s travel stories and tucks destination ideas into the back of her mind. She soaks in travel magazines and reads guidebooks for fun. She is awash in wanderlust.
As much as she enjoys the process of thinking and planning, she has realized that she wants to do more actual traveling. “There are so many places I want to see, so much I want to do, and I know I can’t wait for the ideal time,” she recently declared. This means fitting travel into her life as a wife and as a mother of three homeschooled children, all while working within a slim budget.
She’s obviously serious about this. She’s leaving this week to visit a friend in Texas, thanks to a $150 ticket. After that, it’s a girlfriends’ getaway to Nevada. And this summer, it’s a road trip with her kids to the places where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and wrote about. My sister is determined to live her dream, not just talk about it. She’s doing the best she can with the resources she has right now.
Her newfound determination reminds me of a story I read about renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman. Perlman reportedly had a string break during a concert in front of a large crowd. The story goes that he continued playing with the remaining three strings, adjusting and compensating as he went along--and ending his performance with rousing applause from the audience. When the crowd quieted, Perlman spoke. “You know, sometimes it’s the artist’s task to find out how much music you can make with what you have left.”
Limited resources don’t have to keep you from achieving a longtime dream, whether it’s large or small. First, you need to get out of the “dreaming” stage and move into the doing. In other words, decide on your destination; this is your goal. While you’re doing this, tune out the naysayers, even if you’re one of them right now.
Next, work on removing the limits that can make you feel stuck. If it’s a lack of savings, start an automatic payroll deduction or save every five dollar bill you get. If it’s debt that’s holding you back, get a handle on what you owe and create a repayment plan. If it’s an overscheduled life, look for ways to free up time.
Keep in mind that removing limits doesn’t necessarily mean making major changes. Maybe your obstacle is some as simple as having a lack of space for your own garden; you don’t have to move to do what you love. Look for a community garden plot or ask a friend if you can put in a few raised beds at his house for a share of the bounty.
Whether you reach your destination quickly or if you travel down a winding path to get there, always make it a point to do the best you can with the resources you have at your command right now. Here’s to Iceland ponies and to following your passion wherever it might lead.
CCCS/ACCE –American Center for Credit Education
Carey Denman
I know this because she weaves travel talk into everyday conversation. She listens with rapt attention to other people’s travel stories and tucks destination ideas into the back of her mind. She soaks in travel magazines and reads guidebooks for fun. She is awash in wanderlust.
As much as she enjoys the process of thinking and planning, she has realized that she wants to do more actual traveling. “There are so many places I want to see, so much I want to do, and I know I can’t wait for the ideal time,” she recently declared. This means fitting travel into her life as a wife and as a mother of three homeschooled children, all while working within a slim budget.
She’s obviously serious about this. She’s leaving this week to visit a friend in Texas, thanks to a $150 ticket. After that, it’s a girlfriends’ getaway to Nevada. And this summer, it’s a road trip with her kids to the places where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and wrote about. My sister is determined to live her dream, not just talk about it. She’s doing the best she can with the resources she has right now.
Her newfound determination reminds me of a story I read about renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman. Perlman reportedly had a string break during a concert in front of a large crowd. The story goes that he continued playing with the remaining three strings, adjusting and compensating as he went along--and ending his performance with rousing applause from the audience. When the crowd quieted, Perlman spoke. “You know, sometimes it’s the artist’s task to find out how much music you can make with what you have left.”
Limited resources don’t have to keep you from achieving a longtime dream, whether it’s large or small. First, you need to get out of the “dreaming” stage and move into the doing. In other words, decide on your destination; this is your goal. While you’re doing this, tune out the naysayers, even if you’re one of them right now.
Next, work on removing the limits that can make you feel stuck. If it’s a lack of savings, start an automatic payroll deduction or save every five dollar bill you get. If it’s debt that’s holding you back, get a handle on what you owe and create a repayment plan. If it’s an overscheduled life, look for ways to free up time.
Keep in mind that removing limits doesn’t necessarily mean making major changes. Maybe your obstacle is some as simple as having a lack of space for your own garden; you don’t have to move to do what you love. Look for a community garden plot or ask a friend if you can put in a few raised beds at his house for a share of the bounty.
Whether you reach your destination quickly or if you travel down a winding path to get there, always make it a point to do the best you can with the resources you have at your command right now. Here’s to Iceland ponies and to following your passion wherever it might lead.
CCCS/ACCE –American Center for Credit Education
Carey Denman
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
FTC Amends Free Credit Reports Rule To Help Consumers Steer Clear of ‘Free’ Offers that Cost Money
Starting April 2, advertising for “free credit reports” will require new disclosures to help consumers avoid confusing “free” offers – which often require consumers to spend money on credit monitoring or other products or services – with the no-strings-attached credit reports available at AnnualCreditReport.com, or 877-322-8228.
The Federal Trade Commission’s Free Credit Reports Rule will require new prominent disclosures in advertisements for “free credit reports.” For example, any Web site offering free credit reports must include a disclosure, across the top of each page that mentions free credit reports, which states:
THIS NOTICE IS REQUIRED BY LAW. Read more at FTC.GOV.
You have the right to a free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com
or 877-322-8228, the ONLY authorized source under federal law.
The Web site disclosure must include a clickable button to “Take me to the authorized source” and clickable links to AnnualCreditReport.com and FTC.GOV.
The Credit CARD Act of 2009 requires the Commission to issue a rule by February 22, 2010, to prevent deceptive marketing of “free credit reports.” Specifically, the Act requires that certain advertisements for “free credit reports” include prominent disclosures designed to prevent consumers from confusing these “free” offers with the federally mandated free annual credit reports available through the “centralized source,” which is AnnualCreditReport.com, or 877-322-8228. The Credit CARD Act of 2009 requires a slightly different disclosure between now until April 2: “Free credits reports are available under Federal law at: AnnualCreditReport.com.”
The FTC proposed amending the Rule in October 2009 and received more than one thousand comments from consumers, consumer reporting agencies, consumer report resellers, business and trade organizations, state attorneys general, consumer advocates, law firms, members of Congress, and academics.
The amended Rule also restricts practices that might confuse or mislead consumers as they try to get their federally mandated free annual credit reports. For example, the amended Rule requires nationwide consumer reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – to delay any advertising for products or services on AnnualCreditReport.com until after consumers get their free credit reports.
The amended Rule is effective April 2, 2010, except for the wording of the disclosures for television and radio advertisements, which takes effect on September 1, 2010. The FTC will monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the amended Rule and the required disclosures, and will consider additional changes as necessary.
The amended Rule can be found on the Commission’s Web site as a link to this press release and will soon be published in the Federal Register. The Commission vote authorizing the publication of the Federal Register notice was 4-0.
Information in credit reports may affect whether consumers can get a loan or a job, so it is important that consumers check their credit reports and correct any information that is inaccurate. Each of the nationwide credit reporting companies is required to provide consumers with a free copy of their credit reports once every 12 months upon request. Consumers can learn more about their right to a free credit report under federal law at http://www.ftc.gov/freereports.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Frank Dorman,
Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2674
STAFF CONTACT:
Katherine Armstrong,
Bureau of Consumer Protection
202-326-2252
(FACTA - Free Credit Reports)
(FTC File No. R411004)
Reprinted from the Federal Trade Commissions website at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/02/facta.shtm
The Federal Trade Commission’s Free Credit Reports Rule will require new prominent disclosures in advertisements for “free credit reports.” For example, any Web site offering free credit reports must include a disclosure, across the top of each page that mentions free credit reports, which states:
THIS NOTICE IS REQUIRED BY LAW. Read more at FTC.GOV.
You have the right to a free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com
or 877-322-8228, the ONLY authorized source under federal law.
The Web site disclosure must include a clickable button to “Take me to the authorized source” and clickable links to AnnualCreditReport.com and FTC.GOV.
The Credit CARD Act of 2009 requires the Commission to issue a rule by February 22, 2010, to prevent deceptive marketing of “free credit reports.” Specifically, the Act requires that certain advertisements for “free credit reports” include prominent disclosures designed to prevent consumers from confusing these “free” offers with the federally mandated free annual credit reports available through the “centralized source,” which is AnnualCreditReport.com, or 877-322-8228. The Credit CARD Act of 2009 requires a slightly different disclosure between now until April 2: “Free credits reports are available under Federal law at: AnnualCreditReport.com.”
The FTC proposed amending the Rule in October 2009 and received more than one thousand comments from consumers, consumer reporting agencies, consumer report resellers, business and trade organizations, state attorneys general, consumer advocates, law firms, members of Congress, and academics.
The amended Rule also restricts practices that might confuse or mislead consumers as they try to get their federally mandated free annual credit reports. For example, the amended Rule requires nationwide consumer reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – to delay any advertising for products or services on AnnualCreditReport.com until after consumers get their free credit reports.
The amended Rule is effective April 2, 2010, except for the wording of the disclosures for television and radio advertisements, which takes effect on September 1, 2010. The FTC will monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the amended Rule and the required disclosures, and will consider additional changes as necessary.
The amended Rule can be found on the Commission’s Web site as a link to this press release and will soon be published in the Federal Register. The Commission vote authorizing the publication of the Federal Register notice was 4-0.
Information in credit reports may affect whether consumers can get a loan or a job, so it is important that consumers check their credit reports and correct any information that is inaccurate. Each of the nationwide credit reporting companies is required to provide consumers with a free copy of their credit reports once every 12 months upon request. Consumers can learn more about their right to a free credit report under federal law at http://www.ftc.gov/freereports.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Frank Dorman,
Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2674
STAFF CONTACT:
Katherine Armstrong,
Bureau of Consumer Protection
202-326-2252
(FACTA - Free Credit Reports)
(FTC File No. R411004)
Reprinted from the Federal Trade Commissions website at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/02/facta.shtm
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