This week’s YoungMoney.com article, “The Economic Homeless,” solidified my anger over the fact that it is so much easier to send donate money to help Haiti then it is to help people in this country. As stated in the article, text message donating is easy, it only takes a few seconds and you only are asked to give a little bit of money; so why doesn’t the American Red Cross or other charities have the same system of receiving text message donations?

This country is usually pretty good about coming together after a disaster. After 9/11 we saw an outpouring of patriotism and heroics; the country also came together after Hurricane Katrina to help rebuild New Orleans. But, when a problem is ongoing instead of a big reality-shattering disaster, it is much too easy for us to ignore it.

More money has been donated to help Haiti because of the ease and efficiency of text message donations. We should be able to send text message donations to help people here too.

If they were giving out gold medals to Olympic sponsors for sustainability, Coca-Cola would surely take home the gold.

During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver Coca-Cola is planning on becoming the first zero-waste, carbon-neutral Olympic sponsor. The Olympics have always been at the forefront of the green movement. Now, they are looking for sponsors who are willing to do more than just through down millions of dollars, they are looking for companies to also be sustainable.

The Coca-Cola Company is the longest continuous corporate supporter of the Olympic Games, and has been a sponsor since 1928.

Coca-Cola began implementing recycling efforts during the 2000 Athens Olympic Games, and later evolved with eco-friendly coolers and shirts made from plastic bottles. After sponsoring the Vancouver games in 2006, Coke found that the Olympic Torch Relay staff and Olympic Games staff “recycled bottle” shirts proved difficult when it came to standing up to low temperatures and large amounts of precipitation. Finding a supplier with the right technology to produce the shirts was an extra step in its sponsorship process. However, Coca-Cola keeps moving forward—they are one of the first companies to receive a “sustainability star” from the Vancouver Winter Olympics committee for the upcoming 2010 Olympic Games. In addition to making the Olympics committee happy, they are also giving consumers what they want. Expectations for sponsors of big events are rising and Coke believes their zero-waste sponsorship will surely raise the bar.

According to PlasticsNews.com, at the 2010 Olympics, “visitors will find café furniture made from pine-beetle-salvaged wood, drink out of bottles made from 30 based plant-based materials, and their beverages will be delivered via hybrid vehicles and electric cart. All are elements of Coca-Cola’s first zero-waste, carbon-neutral sponsorship.”
Some of Coca-Cola’s green goals:
1. Ensure that at least 95% of its waste materials is diverted from landfills
2. Arrange for all recyclable materials such as shrink wrap and cardboard trays to be sent to a recycling center in Richmond, BC
3. Collect and recycle 100% of the single-serve plastic bottles from beverages consumed in Games’ venues.
4. Use hybrid delivery vehicles
5. Arrange for all staff uniforms to be made out of recycled bottles

Read more about this at Advertising Age.

What do you think? Is having sustainable, carbon-free corporate sponsors at the Olympic Games important to you?

By Ellen Underwood

American’s United for Change has released a new ad… equating Wall Street with a bunch of slop hungry pigs.

What do you think? Is it time for Obama to get tough on Wall Street?

Wanting to get the most value for your money is nothing new. During hard economic times, most people want to stretch each dollar to its maximum potential. This is especially true whenever talking about a big expense, such as the cost of a college education.

Unfortunately, individual families aren’t the only ones who need help, state schools are also facing troubled times. Higher unemployment means less taxes being paid, and a higher demand for state services. Higher education budgets have been cut. According to Yahoo! Finance, “Universities that once relied on the income from fat endowments have yet to recoup multimillion-dollar losses to their portfolios. Families continue to apply for financial aid in record numbers. Meanwhile, enrollment at state institutions has spiked as more students go public and more people overall seek college degrees.”

While tuition has been on the rise, the quality of many of these schools has suffered. Public universities have cut operating costs which leads to bigger classrooms, part-time instructors, and limited enrollments.

Yahoo! Finance has put together a list of the “Best Value in Public Colleges 2009 – 2010.” My alma mater, University of Maryland, made the list! Along with some other really good schools, such as UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, and William and Mary, schools that are known as the ”Public Ivies.”  Here it is:

1. University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
2. University of Florida
3. University of Virginia
4. College of William & Mary (Va.)
5. Binghamton University
6. University of Georgia
7. University of Washington
8. University of Maryland, College Park
9. SUNY Geneseo
10. North Carolina State University

With California’s 15 percent mid-year tuition hike and the expected second hike of 15 percent coming this summer, it is no surprise that most of these schools are on the east coast.  Read the full article.

Or, if possible, avoid places where there are no jobs.  If you find yourself unemployed, or if you are going to be graduating college this semester during a time of high unemployment, you may want to review this map. This map shows unemployment rates by county and is courtesy of The Washington Post. You can use this map to see how your county has fared over the past few years, it may be able to give you a good indication of what is happening in the area in which you live, and the direction your county is moving. For example: if unemployment has steadily increased in your county more than other counties, why? Are jobs leaving your area? Have taxes for new businesses increased to the point of making it inhospitable? Has your county’s major industry failed? Take Michigan, it has the highest state-wide unemployment–14.1 percent. You can look at that and the state of the automobile industry and realize that Michigan is probably not a good place to move. If you are planning on moving, use the map to see which areas have jobs now and which have consistently been improving.

Before you move, you should also look at the possible structural unemployment. This means that there is a discrepency between the available jobs and the skill set of the workers. If you have gone to nursing school and have sufficient training in that area then you should do well in a place where there are a lot of hospitals and not a lot of nursing schools. It sounds obvious but go where you are needed and you will have a much easier time finding a job. You can get a definition of structural unemployment and then read more about it.

However, moving is much easeir said then done, considering that most unemployed and/or young people do not have money to move. If you are going to spend the money to move then you want to be sure that jobs are going to continue to be available.

CNN/Money has divulged its annual list: “100 Best Companies to Work for in 2010.”  Thanks to the current unemployment rate many of these companies should expect a crushing amount of applications. However, some of the companies on the list were able to continue business as usual — without a single layoff! That truly is amazing.

The Top 5:

1. SAS – sas.com
2. Edward Jones – edwardjones.com
3. Wegmans – wegmans.com
4. Google – google.com
5. Nugget Market – nuggetmarket.com

Two of the top five are information technology companies, two are in the grocery business, and one is in financial services. I’m surprised that Edward Jones remained this high given the issues in the financial sector over the past couple of years.

Look for the one(s) in your backyard.

Consumer Reports recently posted 10 ways to keep your heating bill costs down this winter:
1. ”Lock in your price for natural gas or heating oil.”
2. ”Check for federal tax incentives” and the “cash for clunkers for appliances rebate program.”
3. Try for a free energy audit — or “hire a reputable firm”.
4. Check “easy-to-correct problems”, such as “changing or cleaning furnace filters and dusting heat registers or baseboard radiators…”
5. Consider space heaters and electric blankets.
6. Check out the “federal government’s pending cash for caulkers program.”
7. ”Keep heated air inside your home and conserve energy.”
8. ”Insulate your attic and minimize the stack effect.”
9. ”Buy an effective programmable thermostat and install it yourself.”
10. Consider a “tankless water heater or a solar water heater.”

(You can find the above tips at TipHero.com.)

Everyone should try the Home Energy Saver Calculator to see how much other people are spending in your area and how much money you can save.

More easy things you can do to lower your heating costs:

• Add attic insulation (this can lower costs 5 to 30% – U.S. Dept of Energy)
• Drop temperature a few degrees (each degree saves about 3%) – consider dropping it when no one is home or at night
• Seal holes, look for holes where heating and water pipes emerge, around windows and doors and anyplace you feel a draft
• Insulate water pipes (slip-on pipe insulation is easy), you can also wrap a special energy-reducing blanket around your water heater, this reduces energy lost in transport and storage
• Consider installing energy efficient windows, storm windows or shrink wrapping plastic sheets on windows you rarely open

Here’s another bonus to making your home more energy efficient, according to a study by the Appraisal Institute every dollar saved off your energy bill from home improvements can add $20 to the resale value of your home.