Personal finance

Health care biz: When the debate gets personal

By Kelly Carr on Mar 19, 2010 in Best Practices, Investigation, Personal finance, SABEW 2010, SABEW 2010 blog, Tools, TrendingTopic

This morning, I got a little tip: Check out Amanda
Bennett’s latest package on end-of-life care at Bloomberg.com.
Bennett’s husband died of cancer several years ago and soon after she faced bills that totaled $618,616, most of it for the final two years of his battle.
The huge cost of care led her to ask, “When is [...]

Find stories in the business of gardening

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 19, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Personal finance

After a few months of freak snowstorms, floods and southern chills, your readers may be eyeing those colorful gardening catalogues with even more optimism than usual. Hoeing a row or two of beans will seem like a snap compared to slogging through slush and ice.
From houseplants to turf, from the odd rosebush to entire yards’ [...]

Quirky local indicators and other fun biz angles

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 18, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Personal finance, Private companies, Story ideas

Miscellaneous is probably my favorite among the 600,000-plus words in our English language. Like potpourri, salmagundi, hodgepodge, pastiche and its others sisters, it conjures up pleasant notions of variety, spontaneity and surprise.
That’s what you’re getting today: A veritable gallimaufry and mélange of topics that don’t quite merit their own posts but nevertheless will make for [...]

Humanizing health care reform in your region

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 17, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Health care, Non-profits, Personal finance, Story ideas

Health care reform limped back to center stage this week. And though the final outcome is as yet uncertain, one thing is for sure: Your readers will be wondering about how various scenarios will affect them.
That includes small businesspersons and corporate chiefs as well as individuals, so you have plenty of story angles from which [...]

Help readers run with the bulls

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 15, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Personal finance, Story ideas

With U.S. stock markets continuing to creep upward, pundits are trotting out bullish forecasts and recommendations, such as this one from MarketWatch.
A lot of the buying is being driven by some better-than-expected fourth-quarter corporate profits and upbeat 2010 outlooks by companies ranging from Target to John Deere. We know how fast all of that can [...]

Tips on making the last-minute, tax-filing story fresh

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 12, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Personal finance, Story ideas

As of Monday, March 15, readers have exactly one month to get their 2009 income tax returns filed.

Or at least, they have one month to file an extension request,which is automatically granted and buys them another six months to finally get that financial file organized. (Just remember to remind your audience that they still are required [...]

Give readers a mortgage program scorecard

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 11, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Personal finance, Story ideas

Tax credits. Loan modifications. Deed-for-lease. Short-sale incentives.
It’s getting difficult to keep track of government programs aimed at propping up the frail home buying and selling markets.
And we’re paid to do so. Imagine the confusion among shoppers and sellers facing foreclosure or ready to dip a toe into spring’s residential real estate season.
My suggestion: a graphics-driven [...]

Help readers make sense of food recalls

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 09, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Health care, Investigation, Personal finance, Private companies, Retail, Story ideas

You think Toyotas with rogue throttles are scary?
Try Pringles with salmonella.
Over the past few days news of another possibly widespread food recall has broken, and your readers will be wondering how it affects them. While you’re at it, you might want to develop a broader piece on food inspection, retail and restaurant inspection and other [...]

How about a story on where the jobs are, not where they aren’t?

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 04, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Personal finance, Story ideas

We’ll be getting a fresh federal update on the nation’s unemployment rate tomorrow and most prognosticators expect a bigger decline in payrolls than we saw for January, with bad weather among the factors delaying the job market’s recovery.
Be sure to check out the state and metro area data on employment, hours and earnings, too, when [...]