Help for Caregivers

The mission of Share the Care (http://sharethecare.org) is "to improve the 'quality of life' of anyone who needs support–and to reduce the stress, depression, isolation and economic hardship of their caregivers.
"Caregiving will touch everyone at some point in life yet it often remains in the shadows of the public/media spotlight because it does not make for a picture that melts the heart but rather one to be avoided at all costs. Not so much because people are uncaring but rather frightened and uneducated.
Sometimes, friends disappear when illness strikes because they don’t know “what to do or what to say.”
And often the person needing support and their caregiver hide the fact and carry the entire burden alone rather than admit they could use help.
STC’s focus is on educating caregivers, patients and their concerned friends, neighbors, co-workers and acquaintances about the profound personal benefits to everyone involved through sharing the care.
Because we find that family caregivers often tend to be isolated and therefore less likely to reach out for help, we target professionals, and faith communities. They see caregivers and patients on a daily basis and are best situated to identify those who could benefit from a STC group. We also seek to reach working caregivers through corporations."
         '

Will College Pay Off?

While a college education provides much more than a ticket to a job, the focus has definitely shifted from the benefits of a well-educated populace who can think, analyze, and make rational decisions, appreciate the arts, and contribute to society. The emphasis now is on the financial aspects: can I get a good job when I graduate? And with the explosion in student loan debt, students and parents need to be a lot more savvy than in the past, especially when it comes to for-profit higher education. University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School professor Peter Capelli, new book, Will college pay off? A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You Will Ever Make, provides plenty of information for prospective students and their parents to consider before deciding on higher education. Check out this link to an interview with the author for more info: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/will-college-pay-off-a-surprising-cost-benefit-analysisision-youll-ever-make/

More evidence that financial advisers may not benefit clients

As recently reported in The Wall Street Journal,by Daisy Maxey on July 24, research in Europe found that:
"Investors trading stocks with assistance of financial advisers are more diversified and overcome some common pitfalls, a new working paper from European researchers found.
But they are worse off overall than investors who trade independently, because their stock purchases underperform, the study says.
The findings suggest advisers “do not help investors make superior stock purchases,” wrote the researchers, who examined client transactions at a large, unidentified Swiss bank.
There was “consistent evidence” that stock trades made by investors in conjunction with an adviser underperformed benchmarks as well as trades investors made independently, the researchers say.
Moreover, the underperformance was “particularly severe if the client-advisor contact was initiated by the adviser, suggesting that advisers actively approach clients with rather poor trading ideas,” the paper says.

Avoid Medicare Enrollment Mistakes

About to turn 65? Need to know more about Medicare?Watch the short video and check out the additional links to help you understand how Medicare works and what you need to do to enroll. All this is included in
this terrific blog post from the Squared Away Blog at http://squaredawayblog.bc.edu/squared-away/avoid-medicare-enrollment-mistakes/