…with barely a speck of athletic ability (true), but now my prowess in matters financial makes up for all that.

I think Coach Devine says it best…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w8BfH1Q_zM[/youtube]

No one, and I mean NO ONE, comes into our house and pushes us around! Not the brick-and-mortar banks who try to nickel-and-dime us with fees! Not the credit card companies who charge ludicrous interest rates on our balances (which we shouldn’t be carrying, anyway)! And, most especially, not our own bad habits, like when we convince ourselves that we don’t earn enough money to invest (with a discount brokerage you can open a Roth IRA with just $50!) .

I’m in the fourth quarter (aka Week 5) of the 6-week plan to financial literacy outlined by Ramit Sethi in I Will Teach You to Be Rich. The clock is running low, but Team Erin is ahead by 28. And I’m about to sack the quarterback, in a manner of speaking.

This week, per Ramit’s pep talk, I created an Automatic Money Flow that will manage my money for me. All my accounts are linked, so that my 401(k) contribution is taken out of my paycheck before I ever see it. Then my paycheck is direct-deposited into my brick-and-mortar checking account. From there, I’ve set up automatic transfers: my checking account funds my Roth IRA and my high-interest online savings account and pays my credit card bill. I use my credit card to pay my utilities bill. What’s left is free for me to spend as I please. As Ramit puts it, “Once it’s set up, this system is so hands-off that if you got eaten alive by a Komodo dragon, your money system would continue transferring money from account to account by default, a ghostlike reminder of your financial prescience. Haunting, but cool.”

Not as thrilling as being carried off the field after recording the first and only stat of my college football career—but so EASY PEASY that it makes me wonder why someone hasn’t written an inspirational personal finance film based on my life.

(For those who are interested, Notre Dame’s first game of the season, vs. South Florida, is next Saturday at 3:30 p.m. GO IRISH!)

Brace yourselves, folks: Here comes yet another adorable video of an unlikely friendship in the animal kingdom! This time we’re celebrating the bond between Herbie the pit bull puppy and Jabby the horse.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGHz4XuvGog&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Jabby seems happy to have a playful visitor at the stable, and clearly Herbie is ecstatic at having made such an enormous friend! I didn’t think anything could even come close to “too cute” until I got about 20 seconds in to this video. A horse and a puppy—snuggling! It’s puppy love indeed.

For even more sweet videos and photos of interspecies bonding, check out the official Unlikely Friendships website—and pick up a copy of the New York Times best-selling book by Jennifer S. Holland!

The results are in! Before we reveal the Bastille Day Challenge grand prize winner, let’s congratulate our three finalists:

• The Colors of Indian Cooking
• Spoon & Ink
• Food Basics 101

These posts captured the essence of French Classics Made Easy—the writing was effortless and fun, and these bloggers showcased mouthwatering results.

After reading each post carefully, author Richard Grausman has chosen the grand finalist! Lee Stokes Hilton of Spoon & Ink made a beautiful, vitamin-packed version of Grausman’s Watercress Soup (Potage au Cresson) with maximum flavor and minimal fuss. All of her efforts have paid off, and she will be receiving a wonderful Cuisinart Elite Collection Food Processor along with her copy of French Classics Made Easy!

Congratulations, Lee! And thank you again to all of our participants.

And remember, it’s never too late to start cooking French food at home. Start with one of these delicious recipes that the bloggers tackled for the contest and you’ll be cooking up a storm in no time.

It’s been a fairly overcast week at Workman headquarters. Luckily, people around here are particularly adept at finding things to be happy about. This week’s pick-me-up took the form of a colleague in the art department (on the north side of the building) e-mailing the editorial department (on the south side) to alert us to the presence of an elusive double rainbow out our office’s north-facing windows.

Rainbows: guaranteed to brighten your day!  Keep reading for a before picture and more captures of the twin Roy G. Bivs.  All photos are by Ariana Abud.

Continue Reading »

According to Catholic tradition, sometime between A.D. 98 and A.D. 117, St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was ordered by Roman Emperor Trajan to suffer a gruesome death among the wild beasts in the Roman Coliseum. It is said that the letters Ignatius wrote before his demise are “redolent with the spirit of Christian charity, apostolic zeal, and pastoral solicitude.”

Totally gratuitous photo of my friends and me at the actual Coliseum.

A more recent blogging tradition tells the tale of Erin, Assistant Editor of Workman, who in the year A.D. 2011 embarked on a similarly harrowing personal journey of self-mortification–but this was mortification of the wallet, not the flesh. Comparatively gruesome (but with a happier ending), Erin of Workman’s journey reached its apex in the creation of a conscious spending plan as advocated by personal finance guru Ramit Sethi, who is much nicer than Emperor Trajan, and also better looking. It is said that Sethi’s book I Will Teach You to Be Rich is “smart, bold, and practical. I Will Teach You to Be Rich is packed with tips that actually work” (J.D. Roth, editor, GetRichSlowly.org). Now those are virtues I can relate to.

Like Moses bringing forth water from a rock, I wrought my conscious spending plan (CSP) from years of neglect and worry over the state of my financial affairs. But when I hit Week 4 of Sethi’s 6-week plan, I couldn’t evade it any longer. I was about to step into the lion’s den–the jungle I had so weepingly anticipated in Week 1′s post.

Despite Ramit’s repeated assurances that a CSP is not a budget, I knew that devising one meant I would have to face the reality of the “spending” money I fritter away on little things like a sandwich here and there, and big things like a Banana Republic factory store shopping spree here and there. And I did face the reality, and though I was not happy to do so, I discovered some important things: 1) I CAN save money for my retirement, long-term, and short-term accounts, even under the yoke of New York City rent, and 2) my dad, as I shared in Week 2′s post, is freakishly on point about many matters of money management, having utilized Ramit’s envelope system long before Ramit made it explode in popularity. (That was hyperbole. But, seriously, try the envelope thing. It’s an extremely literal and simple way to delegate your spending money. It’s on page 115.)

In line with my new tradition of paying myself first, my next big vacation may be less Coliseum and more this…

But I think I can deal with that. There, the only animals are on the casino floor.

It’s August, and summer is very much still in full swing here in New York City. But despite the chirping birds and blazing sun and ice cream trucks on every corner, I can’t help but think about…January! Call me crazy, but I’m kind of excited for winter this year. That’s not to say that once the snow starts falling and my usually pleasant (if muggy) walk to work becomes a miserable, wet slog I won’t wish I were in a hammock on a tropical island somewhere; no, I’ll definitely be wishing that. Still, there is something quite pleasant about the first month of the year, and I’m not talking about resolutions. I’m talking about calendars.

This (well, next) year’s crop of Workman calendars is pretty epic. There are of course the old standbys, such as the 365 Cats and 365 Dogs Page-a-Day Calendars, two of our most popular titles. And there’s always space on the wall for the gorgeous 1,000 Places to See Before You Die Wall Calendar. But I’d like to take this time to introduce some titles you’ve never seen before. Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present the New Workman Calendars for 2012!

LEGO: The Calendar
If you were ever a kid, you’ve probably played with LEGO bricks at some point in your life—if not every day for 15 years (and beyond). Now you can bring your obsession out into the open with LEGO: The Calendar, a year-long celebration of all things LEGO. Twelve images of spectacular LEGO constructions are accompanied by fun facts about LEGO history and lore. Plus, enter your own construction in the LEGO Calendar Contest and let your creation grace the walls of LEGO enthusiasts the world over!

Peel It. Design It. Birds in Flight and Tropical Paradise
In the category of Most Innovative Calendars I’d like to nominate the Peel It. Design It. series. Decorate your home or office space with beautiful bird- or tropical-themed wall art that also helps you keep track of the days. The decals will stick to your wall or any hard, clean surface, and they won’t leave a mark, so you can move them around during the year as your design sensibilities evolve.

Gallery Calendars: Birds and Flowers
Joining the line of beautiful Page-a-Day Gallery Calendars are two new nature-inspired titles: Birds and Flowers.  Thanks to the brilliant colors and exquisite detail of the exceptional photographs, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped into a natural park with either one of these galleries on your desk.

Nudes Having Fun
You know Nuns Having Fun—now here’s Nudes Having Fun! That’s right: twelve (tasteful) black-and-white images of people having a good time without letting clothes get in the way. There’s a nude sing-along, naked mountain climbers, even a wedding in the buff. Cheeky (ha!) and adorable.

Daily Muse: Writer’s Diary
Everyone knows an aspiring writer (the novel’s almost done, I swear!), and even someone who’s quit his day job to hone his craft needs to keep track of his appointments. Give the budding novelist in your life the portable Writer’s Diary and watch him be encouraged and inspired by quotations from and images of his favorite authors.

Unlikely Friendships
And last but certainly not least, there’s the Unlikely Friendships calendar, based on the New York Times best-selling book by Jennifer S. Holland. Featuring twelve remarkable stories about inter-species camaraderie, this calendar is guaranteed to make you go “aww!” all year long.

Happy New Year!

Have you met Oscar? Oscar is a little kid with a BIG friend—a giant one, in fact! When Oscar discovers a very big, VERY hungry giant in his backyard, he knows he has to do something. But what? How do you feed a hungry giant? Would he like an enormous pizza, or a gigantic quesadilla, or a humongous pile of chocolate chip cookies? How much food can one giant eat?!

These are the key questions in How Do You Feed a Hungry Giant? by Caitlin Friedman, with illustrations by Shaw Nielsen. Check out the book trailer below and watch the adorable pop-up book come to life!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/25238140[/vimeo]

…it is SO big.

You other readers can’t deny
When a book comes in with a bitty typeface and it’s all up in your space –
You get hooked, wanna curl up quick
‘Cause you notice that book was thick
With information got you raring
I’m booked and I can’t stop staring
Oh pages, I wanna flip right through you
Look at your pictures
My librarian tried to warn me
But that twist now made the plot so thorny!
Ooh, paperback or hardcover
You say you wanna be a book lover?
Well, use me, peruse me
‘Cause I’m a book club groupie
I’ve read books on dancin’
I’ve read about romancin’
And yet, I bet,
There are some I haven’t got to yet
Good mysteries and horror
My librarian lets me borrow
Take the average bookworm and ask over lunch
What books are gonna pack a punch
Bestsellahs! (Yeah!) Sellahs! (Yeah!)
Has your best friend got a book? (Um, yeah!)
Tell ‘em to read it! (Read it!) Read it! (Read it!)
Read that big ol’ book!

….

Thanks to the Hillsdale Free Public Library for inspiring today’s post with last week’s sign (and a nod to his eminence, Sir Mix-A-Lot)  Here’s to all of you readers out there who want books “real thick and juicy.” Over here at Workman, on this fine Friday, we want to remind all of you who “wanna get the fiction (or nonfiction) on” to beat the summer heat by heading to your nearest library and curling up with a good read and air conditioning.

Happy National Book Week!

It’s hard to believe I’ve already reached Week 4 of the six-week plan to financial independence laid out in Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You to Be Rich. This week, I was supposed to create a conscious spending plan. Ha. That’s what Alanis Morissette would call “ironic,” because the past week’s circumstances have resulted in my being nothing short of frivolous with my accumulating wealth. Basically, the beginning of August has been an Olympic triathlon of birthdays.

Let’s review the many happy reasons for my falling off the wagon, financially-speaking:

Saturday: Happy birthday to my (little) sister Kasey! (24 already!?)

Monday: My birthday! (Ahem. A lady never reveals her age.)

Tuesday: Feliz cumpleaños to my lovely friend Jen! (Also 24!)

Wednesday:  Happy birthday to funny man Grant! (The big three-oh!)

Add to the festivities a friend’s going-away party and my dad’s birthday this Friday, and you have a two-week span that’s long on celebration and short on time for the serious consideration of monetary matters. I’ll get back into the swing of things next week, so be sure to check back! And happy birthday to all the August babies! (Including Workman’s own Generation T(eacher), Megan Nicolay!)

What do you suppose the people below have in common…besides the fact that they’re attractive actors and actresses?

If you guessed, “THEY’RE GOING TO BE IN THE FORTHCOMING MOVIE WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING!!!” …you are exactly right!

Last week Heidi Murkoff herself came into the office for the official celebration—10 years of What to Expect When You’re Expecting on the New York Times best-seller list! That’s 520 weeks (13 gestation periods!) for all you math geniuses. We had ice cream, champagne, and toasted the success (past, present, and future) of the ever popular bible for parents-to-be. Heidi has helped over fourteen million women get through the unknown, sometimes scary, but always exciting, territory of pregnancy. 

While she was here, Heidi regaled us with tales from the set. Much like Love Actually and Valentine’s Day (you saw that, right?), the movie will be a compilation of intersecting stories about… well, you can probably guess. Though Heidi couldn’t reveal who will be pregnant with whose baby, she was excited about the film’s star-studded cast.  We anticipate that the stork will deliver What to Expect just in time for Mother’s Day 2012!