By Chelsea P. Gladden

Co-workers Christian and Bobbi first bonded over their mutual tragedies. Bobbi had lost her father unexpectedly and Christian had survived a car crash that left his wife and 7-month-old daughter dead and his three-year-old son with brain damage. Having one another during their grief proved invaluable.

Eventually, the two fell in love and were married. Bobbi started working part time from home to help care for her stepson Austin who, in addition to brain damage, had autism. The Snows soon wanted to add to their family and were given the gift of their son Josh. It wasn’t long after his birth that they were then pregnant with Blake.

During this second pregnancy in 2006, the family was told that Josh had autism. While the news is devastating for any parent, they were ready to do all that it takes to get Josh the treatment he would need.

While tending to sessions for both sons, their third was eventually also diagnosed. Their strength of character kept them strong as they moved forward with the cards they were dealt.

Working closely with ABA, a form of therapy that has helped children overcome Autism, the future looked bright and the two younger boys were looking likely to enroll in kindergarten and live Autistic free lives.

However, in March, the Regional Center, which funds children with disabilities, inexplicably stopped covering treatment for Josh. Bobbi and Christian have been faced with an $11,000 a month bill in order to continue the treatment– which stands a much better chance the earlier age its received — that has shown vast promise for curing Josh.

Clearly, saving for the unknown is always a good idea but no family could ever anticipate a sudden $11,000 a month bill that could change the course of their son’s life. I chose to write about it because I had just received a moving email from Christian describing their plight. Bobbi and Christian are one of the nicest couples I have ever met and Bobbi is my amazing sister-in-law’s sister.

Their courageousness in the face of adversity has reminded me that there’s more to saving up for a new car, house or paying off the credit card debt, but instead to set aside in my Geezeo budget a fund to contribute to people in need of services you can’t put a price on.

Want to join the discussion on savings? Visit It’s It’s Time to Budget and Couples & Money. To learn more about the Snow family, visit: http://www.fightagainstautism.com
And get creative with your money making. Visit The Top Ten Most Searched Stocks on TheStreet.com.

Valentine’s Day isn’t much more than a hallmark holiday. At least in my opinion! And no…I’m not a single girl who would love to have a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, I have a boyfriend — I told him not to spend the money on gifts/chocolate.

Too many girls expect their boyfriends to spend a lot of money on jewelry and flowers for them for Valentine’s Day, but in my opinion…I JUST finished paying off my credit card bills (and so did my boyfriend) from Christmas, I don’t really have the money to put forward on expensive Valentine’s Day gifts.

I could go for a nice dinner and a single red rose…oh, and don’t forget a card. If nothing else, I told my boyfriend he had to get me a card (and if he didn’t want to fork out at the most $5 for a card then he could make me one). I just don’t see how spending a ton of money on this holiday that marketers created in order to drive sales is worth it. I would rather have someone tell me HOW they feel…than try and do it through a gift.

Besides the link in the Valentine’s Day Flower Savings blog below (which by the way was great a great post for those who are looking to buy flowers!) flowers can cost guys from $50 - $200 on Valentines Day! Thats crazy! They die in about a week anyway! I think its a great idea for guys to find ways to save on Valentine’s Day. I mean, if you have a girl that expects you to spend a lot of money — then at least try to find the cheapest way to spend a lot of money (if that makes any sense to anyone but me).

But seriously, if you want to spend the money on Valentine’s Day by all means, please do! I just don’t think the holiday should be based on spending a lot of money. Yes, I would like to go out to dinner, but I think that is costly enough to buy two people dinner at a restaurant that the rest can be put on hold. Find a different day to buy me a gift…or do something random for me!

This is my opinion…others may think completely differently!

Happy Valentine’s Day! :o)

This holiday I’ve decided to give a small gift of stock to two children of a deceased friend.

The children are ages 5 & 9 and live in another state. I don’t bring this up to brag (the stock purchases are quite small). Rather, I would like to ask for your ideas. How should one give in the context of a family friend giving a financial gift? I want to give without strings attached but I would ideally like the gift to be a learning experience, too. Like I said, the actual financial gift is small. The greater gift is the practice and development of saving, investing, and giving charitably until the account is turned over to them at age 18.

My thought is if the child is personally involved until age 18 it will increase the likelihood that my small gift would be used wisely. (Though, I’m giving it knowing it could be spent on cartons of cigarettes and lotto tickets at age 18!)

Here’s what I’m thinking of writing in a way a kid could understand (after a description of what a stock is):

I would like for us to work together to save and invest for your future. For starters, you’ll need money for college.

Here is your end of the bargain: I would like you to save $50 between now and your next birthday. Half of this total you will invest in your stock account. The other half you will give away to someone who needs it more than you. You will send me your $25 and proof that you’ve donated $25 to a good cause. You choose the cause. You can donate to people, animals, or our environment. You can tell me why you chose it when you send me your $25.

Here is my end of the bargain: I will match your $50 savings. This means I will contribute $50 to purchase more stock. My $50 plus your $25 will equal $75 more in your account. Plus, you will have helped someone else by donating $25 of what you earned and saved. Remember: I will only match your $50 if you can show me that you’ve saved $25 and given another $25 away. I will take care of the stock until you are 18. When you are 18 you can use this money for college or continue to save and invest it.

I know I could pitch in $100/year for my friend’s kids. I also realize this gift isn’t particularly exciting for a kid or even make sense to the younger child. (That’s why I also sent a box of candy!) But I’m hoping with practice and encouragement from the other adults in their lives I could help them develop some good saving, investing and giving skills.

Any advice from others who wish to instill good financial habits in kids — particularly in a situation where the kids aren’t yours?

Have you seen those greeting cards that play music when you open them?

Here’s an idea that tops talking cards that AND fits into our criteria:

1 - Gifts that can fit into almost any budget (remember, you can set your holiday budget here!)
2 - Gifts that you can get without getting in your car (remember: we dislike parking lots)
3 - Gifts that will make even the coldest Scrooge on your list feel good, and you feel good for giving them.

So what’s the card-topping gift? A charity gift card! Rather than presume what charity your gift recipient might like to contribute to, you choose a lovely card and give an amount that is comfortable for you. Your recipient gets the card and has the pleasure of choosing the worthy charity.

Here’s a site that does just that: CardsThatGive.org

If you’ve missed our holiday series so far, here are some highlights:

Gifts for (or to honor) your cute social studies teacher

The gift that keeps *taking*

How to control your holiday spending

Holiday budgeting — easy ways to save!

Gift of Giving Back

One last tip: read up on the charity you’d like to contribute to by heading over to CharityNavigator.org.

Happy giving!

The Holidays are in full force and of course, no matter how much people claim they won’t get caught up this year…everyone is already! Many peoples budgets have been thrown out the window and people say they will “save after the holidays”…haha, in some ways — I agree because I am certainly caught up in the holiday giving spirit this season. I guess having a little bit more money this year due to having two jobs, I am more able to spend more money. But I really like giving gifts, its so fun and obviously people really appreciate it! But as I looked at my bank account this morning, I realized I should slow down a little bit…so I was looking of ways to control my holiday spending and found a great article on MSNBC!

One of the ideas that they suggest to control holiday spending — is to NOT shop for yourself. This one I need serious help on! You buy a gift for one of your best friends, and all of a sudden you think that you would like the same thing. Remind yourself that you will be receiving gifts too — so just wait it our a few more weeks until you reach the point of gift giving!

Buy gifts that really matter — I know we’re trying to save here, but buying people a lot of little useless gifts that don’t really matter to them isn’t going to make an impact on them, instead they will just end up not using them. Buying one thing for the price of all those smaller ideas you had. At least then you know they will be using it!

Don’t get new decorations! haha, I’m a sucker for this trick too. I go into stores and see all of the pretty decorations, adn somehow I convince myself that I really do need new ones to decorate my apartment. Reality check — I really don’t! Use the old ornaments and decorations you have…I’m sure they are good enough. And if you really feel the NEED — buy yourself one or two new ornaments or decorations…not too many!

Check out the rest of their ideas here….some of them are really great! And extremely useful while trying to save and keep your budget under control!

Today, as I got into my elevator at my apartment there was a piece of paper hanging in there that said “Dexter Holiday Party” (Dexter is the apartment complex I live in)…I also siad that it was a charity event. I know that everyone tries to save as much as possible around the holidays, but giving a little bit back to others I think is also really important. Think about it, while you are trying to save…there are people who may not have enough money to get buy on the holidays.

The charity fundraiser at this party tonight was for a canned food drive and toy drive! And I thought to myself…why not just empty out our shelves of cans, and bring them downstairs to this party! We have plenty of cans on our shelves (most that we can even remember what they are anymore) that we should give them to someone that they would really matter to! Also, if you have the time…I would suggest going out and buying a cheap toy and donating it to a Toys for Tots or something. I know sometimes days get busy and you can’t seem to find the time…but even finding old clothes out of your closet that you aren’t going to wear anymore could really help someone out around the holidays!

A little bit of time and an even smaller amount of money could really improve someone elses holiday! This is how I feel at least…so if we all just gave a little bit more at the holidays, it might make all the difference!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! :o)

As I was out during Black Friday today…I was thinking to myself that there has got to be a way for me to save some money this holiday season since either the things I want to get people are really expensive, or I just have way too many people on my list!

Deals Online — My boyfriend is obsessive when it comes to finding deals. He will sit online for hours and search different results, different items, and figure out which one will work best for him. But in the end, he does find great deals! So, I’m not suggesting that you sit on the computer for hours, but if you have an item that you are thinking about purchasing somewhere, do a price comparison just to make sure you are buying it at great value!

Shop Early — This is probably one of the hardest things to do. You never know if people are going to change their minds about something, or buy it before Christmas comes. But if you can start to shop early (like today) you find some great deals and usually the item you want will still be in stock (or hopefully after the Black Friday craziness is over!).

Don’t Overspend — My friends and I love eachother…don’t get us wrong, but buying for every single one of your friends gets really expensive (even if you only spend $10 each). So my friends and I have started to do a Yankee Swap for Christmas. Not only does this save everyone a bunch of money but if everyone buys a gift for around $15 its also a really fun way to spend the night with some drinks, games, and Yankee Swap! haha, call my a loser but I love things like this — and when people want the present that you got, things can get really interesting, you never know what you are going to end up with!

Magazine Subscriptions — Around the holidays magazines always have deals for you to give magazine subscriptions to a friend. This is a great idea, I know one of my best friends buys just about every magazine there is out there…all from the shelf at CVS which means she really is overspending by a lot. I don’t know someone who doesn’t have at least one favorite magazine they like to pick up and read.

Use Cash — Seriously, if you think you have a problem with putting too much money on your credit card…then use cash! This is huge because using a credit card you can rack up a serious bill without even realizing on one crazy day of shopping. But when you use cash, you have to eventually run out! Using cash is just a great way to keep track of your money and make sure you aren’t spending more than you had budgeted for.

These are just a few of the ways people can save a ton of money around the holidays! We all know that shopping can put a serious dent in your budget and savings…so any way to save a little bit of cash works best!

Here it comes! So-called “Black Friday”. That’s the first Friday after Thanksgiving and traditionally the largest shopping day of the year.

So are you going to pile in the car and go get yourself some deals?

Nuh-uh. Not me. Keep me far away from the crazy crowds, thank you. There just aren’t deals good enough. I’ve become more of a “order online or go at off-hours” kind of shopper.

Which brings me to two seemingly unrelated topics: parking lots and mac computers. The first you’ll probably be searching for in vain. The second you’ll probably have on your holiday list, in some sort of Apple form (ipod, mini, laptop, or iMac, non-naughty listmakers?)

Salon posted an interesting article about…. parking lots. Specifically, that many parking lots are built to hold the huge traffic days like Black Friday. What are the economic and environmental costs of free parking? More interesting than you’d think. Makes me think twice now on the rare occasions I pay for parking.

And macs? You don’t have to look far to find Apple fanatics. While Geezeo here is an equal-opp tech shop, I’d say there are more hardcore Mac fans. And why not? Macs are awesome! But have you ever considered the economic trade-offs of buying a mac? Sure, they cost more at the onset. But: they hold their value longer, too. In this brilliant article the issue is solved once and for all… Macs are cheaper.

Which brings us to an interesting phenom happening right now. Yes, right now as we digest those big heavy holiday meals: the development of an economy where almost all goods are liquid and as a whole we move toward “auction culture”. An article and book review of “Future Shop” not to miss right here.

Happy Thanksgiving!
(Now, go set up a Geezeo account, check your budgets…its holiday shoppin’ time!)

The Geezeo Team would like to recognize Ben Jabbawy, the Brand Executive of the Month! Ben has worked extremely hard this summer promoting Geezeo and just this past week set up a booth to introduce incoming Freshmen to Geezeo! He also recruited two new members for our Product Ambassador Team! Ben will be receiving a $30.00 American Express Gift Card in the mail.
In addition to working with the Geezeo Team, Ben serves as the founder and editor of Technizzel an online publication designed to inspire young people to pursue careers in engineering and advanced technologies, that launched this summer. Be sure to check it out!

Thanks Ben! Keep up your hard work!

The Geezeo team would like to thank Hannah Waters for all of her hard work this past month. She’s posted a number of interesting blogs and is very dedicated to the Brand Executive team. Hannah will be receiving a $30.00 gift certificate to Starbucks as a token of our appreciation.

Keep up your hard work Hannah!