John “Jack” Hannon, father of Kerry

One day in the early 1960s, my dad arrived home from his Pittsburgh engineering and consulting firm and brought along a beautiful English leather saddle. He put it on the back of a living room chair with great fanfare. Mom laughed and asked what the heck he planned to do with it. “Well, someday we’re going to have horses,” he replied, “and this was a good buy.”

Not many years later, his dream came true. In 1968, Mom and Dad built a home where they raised four children and kept up to six horses in the stables.

Father’s Day Reflections About Dad 

With Father’s Day approaching, I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot. His money advice helped me see the importance of becoming a personal finance journalist, the career I’ve loved for decades. In a minute, I’ll pass along five lessons I learned from him.

(MORE: From Dad to Grad: A Few Words of Advice)

Dad was the quintessential self-made man. A child of Irish immigrants, he began working at age 12, during the Depression. After high school in Pittsburgh, he rose from a clerical job at an engineering and consulting firm to owning the company, with global clients and offices around the country.

Not the Perfect Money Role Model, but …

Was he the perfect, frugal financial role model? Absolutely not. After all, horses aren’t cheap. And he rarely said no to his children’s requests. When you asked Dad for something expensive, he never said, “We can’t.” It was always, “How can we?” Dad was all about finding solutions.

My dad was a great example of how to balance your wants and needs and invest in your life.

His values inspired me to learn the meaning of money; determine what (and what not) to spend it on and understand how to save, which generally required working hard along the way.

Dad’s 5 Money Lessons That Have Stuck With Me 

Here are five of his financial insights that resonate with me today. I believe they’ll help you, too.

1. Support yourself. From an early age, Dad instructed my older sister, Pat, and me never to be dependent financially on anyone – not our parents, not our spouses, no one.

“It’s essential that you support yourselves,” he told us. “That will give you the freedom to do the things you want to in life without having to ask permission.”

And he was right. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, I don’t think many dads were passing along thismessage to their young daughters. None of my friends’ fathers were – I know that.

To this day, I still maintain my own bank and credit card accounts separate from my husband, Cliff, even after more than 20 years of marriage. If you’re married or have a partner, I advise you to do the same.

I love Cliff and have nothing to hide; we discuss our finances all the time. But I think Dad was right about being financially independent.

2. A big paycheck can’t buy happiness. Yes, your salary is important, he’d say, but not at the expense of your soul.

That’s why I’ve followed my passion and have my dream job (technically, jobs) as a retirement/personal finance/jobs and career transitions expert; author (my new book is Great Jobs for Everyone 50+: Finding Work That Keeps You Happy and Healthy … and Pays the Bills); speaker and journalist, writing columns and blogs for a wide range of national publications, from Next Avenue to Forbes to AARP.

I work hard and enjoy being my own boss as well as making a difference in people’s lives by helping them manage their finances or find a job.

Am I making the sort of income I might in a lucrative field where I could use my same skills, like writing research reports for a consulting or financial services firm? Probably not. But I’m OK with that.

I encourage you to do the type of work you love, too – if possible, with autonomy. That holds true for part-time work in retirement. You’ll get paid in less tangible, non-monetary ways that will bring joy to your life.

(MORE: Why You Need to Love Your Job More)

3. Educate yourself throughout your life. Dad was a big believer in learning. “Invest in knowledge, so you can keep growing into your future,” he urged. “You can’t stand still.” Another one of his gems: “They can never take away from you what you have between your ears.”

Dad paid for all four of his kids’ college educations, plus private school for my older brother, Mike and me. I, in turn, am a loyal alum and board member of both institutions.

When I tally up the sum of money Dad spent on tuition, I blanch. But to him, a college degree was nonnegotiable. Excelling with top grades was all he asked of us. Pat and Mike went on to add prestigious graduate degrees – much to Dad’s delight and pride.

Some of his obsession with education may have been because his family couldn’t afford to send him to college and he regularly worked with colleagues and clients who had impressive degrees.

To Dad, education was more than just getting a diploma, though. He kept up with the latest trends and technology by serving on boards, reading voraciously and attending lectures. He was a self-directed scholar of the highest order: a recipient of the Society for Advancement of Management’s Gilbreth Medal and a contributing author of numerous management handbooks and publications.

Dad felt you should continually improve what you have to offer by learning new things and building on your skill set. Even into his 70s and early 80s, Dad was studying up on robotics, wind power, aviation and medicine.

I’m always looking for ways to keep educating myself, whether it’s through reading, attending lectures or taking online courses. You should, too.

4. Give back. Dad showed by example the importance of assisting those less fortunate and aiding causes you care about with your financial resources and time. He was a tireless volunteer, particularly for the blind (a concern of his because he battled vision issues), and regularly tithed to his church and other nonprofits.

Thanks to Dad, I learned that you don’t need a fortune to make an impact on your favorite charities.

Every year, I earmark a percentage of my income for my designated charities, like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a women’s shelter in Washington, D.C., and causes that directly impact my life, like breast cancer and Alzheimer’s research.

Perhaps you’ll want to try giving strategically, too, and help a group that makes a difference in your community, like a hospice or homeless shelter.

(MORE: How More Women Can Become Philanthropists)

5. You can’t take it with you. I loved this expression of his about spending money. Dad would shrug and out would come those words when he was faced with writing a check for a new car, a horse or a dress for Mom.

I admit it: Dad didn’t teach me to live beneath my means. “Spend on what you love,” he’d say.

While I do follow Dad’s spend from the heart advice, I’ve also learned there are limits to freewheeling it, as I recently wrote in my blog, “11 Essential Money Tips for New College Grads.”

You must have the discipline to save if you really want to spend without worrying.

What I Remember Most About Dad

Money and wealth don’t make the character of a man or a woman.

While it’s true that Dad taught me some valuable financial truths, frankly, that’s not what I remember about him today.

Instead, I think of some of the words my three siblings and I, plus his eight grandchildren, used to describe Dad in a brightly colored book we made for his 80th birthday in 2000: “Encouraging, compassionate, religious, intelligent, family-oriented, supportive, joyful, loyal, confident, nonjudgmental, and of course, chocolate-lover, dog-lover, horseman and Irishman.”

Dad died May 29, 2008, at 88, after a long illness with Alzheimer’s.

If your father is still alive, I hope you have the chance to say Happy Father’s Day! I wish I did.

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The appeal of working from home, be it full time or part time, is easy to understand. Telecommuting employees are happier and more loyal, and they have fewer unscheduled absences, according to a recent survey by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

2. Am I hardwired for telework?

To work from home on a regular basis, you’ll need to be organized, disciplined, have first-rate time management skills and be a self-starter. You may find that you’re working harder because it may be hard to ignore your bosses’ or coworkers‘ phone calls and emails even when you should technically be off work, say late at night or on weekends. It can be really hard to push back from the computer and call it a day. You’ll need to be able to set firm boundaries between work and home.

3. Can I technically make it work?

Your communication skills will need to be top-drawer. That means you’ll need to be comfortable communicating via phone, email and videoconferencing. If you need to give presentations or do any training, you should get familiar with Web-based meeting programs like GoToMeeting, Cisco WebEx, Join.me, TeamViewer or Google+ Hangouts. Some are free, some aren’t. See what platform your company or IT department prefers.

But it goes a little deeper than that. While you don’t need to be an IT whiz, Luddites need not apply. Teleworkers need to navigate the inevitable technology snafus and troubleshoot. For the fritzes you can’t solve, you will need to have a good relationship with someone in your employer’s IT department who can lend a hand quickly. A boss isn’t going to put up with recurring “technical difficulties.” For freelancers, line up a tech buddy on speed dial.

If you have to be on-site to perform your job, chances are slim you’ll be able to transition to teleworking full time. The best you might be able to negotiate with your boss is an occasional work-from-home day.

4. Is teleworking really as good as being there?

Working remotely full time may cause you to miss out on rich workplace relationships, extemporaneous thinking, brainstorming and the collaboration you get from simply being present at meetings or chatting in the lunchroom. As much as you might be in touch via phone, email or videoconferencing, will you be able to pick up on some of those nonverbal communication cues and know exactly what your boss and coworkers expect of you?

You also need to keep in mind that some of your coworkers might resent your new working arrangement, particularly if their job isn’t suitable for telework.

If you are transitioning into a full-time telework schedule, try to attend important, on-site meetings when possible. This is key to not slipping into the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind syndrome” and staying on good terms with your coworkers. You might agree to be on-site when projects are being launched or for other company initiatives. But even if there is a nonbusiness event — like a coworker’s retirement or promotion — show your support and your connection to your coworkers by attending.

5. How important is career advancement?

The Korn/Ferry Institute finds that 60 percent of 300 respondents in a recent survey say telecommuting inhibits career growth.

“There is a perception that if you are not in the office, you are more likely to miss important meetings, get passed over for promotion or get targeted for layoff in the event of a downsizing,” says John A. Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Ana Dutra, chief executive of Korn/Ferry Leadership and Talent Consulting, agrees. “While working at home can be beneficial for both companies and workers, it can also lead to ‘invisibility’ that can limit opportunities for career advancement,” Dutra says. “It is important for telecommuters to remain networked as closely as possible with peers and leaders in the office.”

And remember: Whatever agreement you come to may not survive a new boss or job role. You may need to renegotiate a telework arrangement — full or part time — if things change at the office.

6. Now, how can I convince my boss?

Better efficiency should be at the top of your ‘why you should let me telecommute’ list. Increased productivity was, in fact, one of the leading reasons for allowing employees to work from home, according to both the Challenger and Korn/Ferry surveys.

Draft a proposal that describes what your work schedule would be, the number of hours you would work, how unplanned overtime would be handled, how often you would check in with an office visit. You might agree that when projects are being launched, or problems the company is trying to solve arise, you will work in the office.

To seal the deal, ask for a trial period of three to six months so both you and your boss can see how the arrangement works out and can fine-tune it if needed.

In the end, the best way to convince your boss is to show, not tell. A solid work ethic that delivers reliable results will be your ticket to telework gold stars and, ultimately, your job happiness.

by Kerry Hannon, AARP, May 22, 2013

Kerry Hannon, AARP jobs expert, is a career transition expert and an award-winning author. Her latest book is Great Jobs for Everyone 50+: Finding Work That Keeps You Happy and Healthy … and Pays the Bills.

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It’s possible.

As I wrote about in my Forbes blog, Bad Credit Can Cost You a Job, if you’re looking to change careers, find a new job, get promoted, or just hang onto the one you have, a messy credit report can trip you up.

Employer credit checks are preventing the nation’s hardest hit job seekers from entering the workforce, a new study shows.

One in four unemployed Americans have been required to go through a credit check when applying for a job, and one in ten have been denied jobs due to information in their credit report, according to a survey by think-tank Demos of about 1,000 low- and middle-income households with credit card debt.

Six out of ten private employers check the credit histories of at least some of their job applicants, and 13 percent conduct them on all candidates, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Why? Presumably to prevent theft or embezzlement, fear of lawsuits for a hiring mistake if their employees do something wrong, or to get a sense of the overall dependability of a job candidate. They’re also used to screen applicants for positions that carry financial responsibilities.

In general, employers conduct these checks for job seekers applying for positions with financial responsibility, for senior executive positions, and for those positions with access to highly confidential employee information, according to the report.

This trend spans across all industries—they’re not exclusive to financial institutions.

Is this fair? Should employers judge your ability to perform in a job by your bill-paying performance?

“Employer credit checks are common and they’re keeping people from getting jobs,” according to Amy Traub, Demos senior policy analyst and author of the report.

(More: Check out this HuffPost Live discussion on the Demos study. I was an expert guest, along with John Ulzheimer, credit expert at Creditsesame.com)

Bad credit often is a fallout of unemployment and the loss of health insurance, Demos found. Another common cause of poor credit– medical debt.

Demos’ survey also cited errors on credit reports as dinging job applicants’ credit.

As Richard Eisenberg reports in this Next Avenue blog, a government study finds credit bureau mistakes are rampant.

That’s something you can control. I’ll explain what you can do below.

In truth, the majority of employers say that a credit check is not the most important factor in a hiring decision, previous work experience is, according to SHRM.

I  get why employers would use this tool as part of their due diligence when vetting future employees.

It can be troublesome, however, particularly when someone has been knocked down by a lost job or medical crisis, but it’s a reality in our digital world.

Don’t play the victim.

First, by law, employers aren’t allowed to run a credit check without your permission. And they have to tell you if you lost out on the job because of your credit history.

Importantly, they must give you the opportunity to explain the black marks, or dispute the incorrect information if there happens to be something.

That said, in my opinion, most employers aren’t going to tell you that it’s your credit that killed your chances and risk opening up that can of worms.

My guess is they are more than likely to say they changed directions in what they were looking for in a candidate for the position, or a fairly general and oblique explanation why you were passed over.

Here’s my proactive advice.

1. Get there first. Pull your report before an employer does and clean up any errors.

2. Check for mistakes on your credit report annually. Visit www.annualcreditreport.com to request a free credit report from the three major consumer credit reporting agencies–Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. Fixing mistakes can take a little time, so if you are eyeing that next job, a second verse, get going. You can also check your credit score and report card for free with Credit.com.

3. Prepare an explanation. If you find negative information on your report that is correct, plan what you’re going to tell a potential employer. At least you won’t be blind-sided by it and will have a chance to make your case.

On the brighter side, there was some good news in the credit report world this week. VantageScore Solutions, which is owned by the three major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and Transunion), announced the latest version of its credit scoring model.

It omits negative credit information that happened as a result of a natural disaster. And importantly, collection accounts that have been settled or paid off will not be included in the score. Many consumers are unaware that currently, paying off a collection does not necessarily rehabilitate a credit score, writes Michael Schreiber, Credit.com Editor in Chief, wrote in this blog.

Other scoring models, including the market-leading FICO score and previous VantageScore models, treat collection accounts — even those that have been paid off — as predictive of a consumer’s likelihood to pay off future debts.

My parting question to you:  Have you been turned down for a new job because of your credit report?

Kerry Hannon, Contributor

I cover boomer careers, retirement, aging and personal finance.

Follow me on Twitter, @KerryHannon I’m the author of Great Jobs for Everyone 50+: Finding Work That Keeps You Happy and Healthy … And Pays the Bills (John Wiley & Sons), available here www.kerryhannon.com. Check out my column at AARP. My weekly column  at PBS’s NextAvenue.org is here.

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Employers, it seems, are madly seeking ways to put a tourniquet on their escalating health care costs. “They’re well aware that in 2014, when the health reform law’s provisions kick in, they will be asked to cover more employees and face added cost pressure,” said Julio Portalatin, president and chief executive of benefits consultant Mercer. “They’ve taken bold steps to soften the impact and it’s paying off already.”

(MORE: Divorce Deals a Painful Blow to Women’s Health Insurance)

One of those bold steps recently caught my eye.

Are Bosses Dumping Wives’ Coverage?

I read a fascinating, if unsettling, piece by MarketWatch’s Jen Wieczner called “Why Your Boss Is Dumping Your Wife,” whose premise was that companies are dropping health coverage for spouses to cut costs.

While titillating, based on my reporting, the article turned out to be somewhat hyperbolic.

It seems that it’s not so much that companies are suddenly dumping coverage for spouses. (They’ve never been required by law to provide that coverage, although many do; nor have they been obligated to insure employees.) What is happening is that firms are increasingly tacking on spousal surcharges that can run as much as $3,000 a year. And more companies are planning to do so next year.

Surcharges of Up to $3,000 a Year

In a recent survey conducted by the National Business Group on Health, a membership group that advises large employers about health benefits, and the consulting firm Towers Watson, 20 percent of respondents said they now levy a surcharge of roughly $100 per month on wives who decide not to take advantage of their own employer’s insurance and instead opt for coverage through their husband’s policy.

An additional 13% said they plan to do so in 2014. These types of surcharges typically range from $500 a year to $3,000.

(MORE: Benefits Blues: A Growing Epidemic Among U.S. Workers)

More Firms Slap on Spousal Surcharges

In 2012, 18% of employers with 5,000 or more employees had some type of spousal surcharge provision, up from 15 percent in 2011, according to the Mercer 2012 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans. The employers either imposed a surcharge on spouses who had access to other coverage or in rare instances (4% of employers) denied coverage entirely.

A few years ago, these types of clauses were practically nonexistent.

Companies often find that spouses are more expensive to insure than their own employees, says Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health.

That’s because, Darling and other the benefits experts I interviewed say, covered spouses are often women. As a group, women spend more on health care than men because of childbearing and having more free time, which results in additional doctor’s visits.

Health insurance surcharges can have serious financial repercussions for women in their 50s and older.

As I wrote in in my Next Avenue post, “Divorce Deals a Painful Blow to Women’s Insurance,” Bridget Lavelle, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology, and Pamela J. Smock, director of the university’s Population Studies Center, noted in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior many women between 50 and 64 need to opt for spousal coverage because they are out of the workforce, working part-time or employed by small firms or nonprofits that don’t offer health insurance.

(MORE: 3 Things Women Should Know About Health Reform)

What to Do About a Spousal Surcharge

If you’re hit with a spousal penalty, I suggest taking matters into your own hands and compare your alternatives.

If you’re currently on your husband’s policy but work full-time for an employer that offers health benefits, check with your human resources department for details on enrolling. You might find that your employer provides a larger subsidy.

Before switching over to your employer’s plan, though, scrutinize the benefits of both choices. Your coverage might not be as generous as your spouse’s and paying a surcharge might be worth it.

You might also want to stay on your spouse’s plan and pay the piper just to keep life simple. Being covered by the same insurer can make paperwork less complicated for filing and tracking medical expenses. And you’ll avoid the potential hassle of needing to switch doctors when you change insurers if your plan has a different set of care providers.

Remember to factor in the tax savings when reviewing the surcharge; the penalty may not be as big as you think.

The health insurance premium and any surcharge is paid pretax, Darling says. So if you’re charged $100 extra and are in the 30% bracket, you’ll only effectively be responsible for 70% of the extra cost.

My advice may not eliminate the sting entirely, but perhaps it will numb it a bit.

Kerry Hannon, Contributor

Kerry has spent more than 25 years covering personal finance for Forbes, Money, U.S. News & World Report and USA Today. Her website is kerryhannon.com. Follow her on Twitter@kerryhannon.

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Wake Forest University Commencement 2013, photo by Cliff Hackel

Last weekend, I was a proud aunt, beaming and clapping on the quintessential college quad at the Wake Forest University graduation in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

I love it when the strains of the Pomp and Circumstance march begin, and then afterwards when the last name has been read, and the Carillon bells ring out in jubilation.

How can you not? There is such hope and possibility in the air, so much bursting pride from parents, and relief mingled with joy and the sadness of goodbyes from the graduates.

This was my second graduation of the season. First up was a Master’s degree celebration at the University of Pennsylvania. And I still have another to go.

My guess is many of you can relate to the excitement of these happy family times. I always try to attend these not only because I value education and the discipline it takes to pass these goal posts in life, but also it’s fun and life affirming.

I believe it’s important to support these milestones and rites of passage. There are plenty of sad times we gather for funerals and other heartbreaks, that it’s essential for our souls that we take time for these enriching occasions.

And I am a sucker for the wisdom of the illustrious speakers corralled for these momentous moments.

As a consummate reporter, it’s hard for me to listen idly, so I take notes. I thought I would share some of what I heard that resonated.

The advice, I believe, is good not only to pass along to 20-somethings in your life, but to put into play in your own life right now, two decades removed, as you ponder second acts, encore careers with meaning and more.

(More: Know a New College Graduate? Great Career Tips to Pass On)

Be resilient. Lord David Puttnam, award-winning film producer and advocate for education, addressed the new graduates of University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and spoke about the importance of resilience, retaining the power of your dreams and hope in the face of hardship. Watch video here.

At the Baccalaureate Address at Wake Forest, Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo, President and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, shared the following counsel:

Celebrate other people. “There is no question we live in a highly competitive world,” she said. “There are rankings all around us. There is a sense of the winner takes all. There’s a sense of zero-sum game, that someone’s gain must be my loss, a mentality that is born of scarcity. Even when we win, we can’t enjoy it for long because all we worry about is losing again,” she said.

We ask ourselves: “Who is the person who will replace me as the winner? If we get a promotion, with that type of attitude, we have just gained a tougher group of competitors. And so we are always looking behind to see who is going to take our place,” Woo said.

And this is key, in my opinion. Woo urged the graduates to look inside and find ways to be happy for other people. “So as we go about with this type of mentality, can we really make a place for the other? Can we allow other people to take credit? Can we rejoice when something good happens to others? Or do we feel like we have just lost and become diminished because something good has happened to others?”

(More: Why You Need To Love Your Job More)

Collaborate. “There’s no work that can be done by one person. And collaboration requires a tremendous amount of team ability,” she remarked.

And of course, team building is all about bonding with others. And to illustrate how to do so, Woo remembered what she had heard at her own commencement. The speaker was Steven Fuller, who was then the vice president of HR at General Motors. Steven Fuller said: “Charisma is the ability to take people as you find them, to like them for what they are and to not despise them for what they are not.”

“In other words, the capacity to accept and celebrate other people,” Woo interpreted.

Listen to others. Woo dreaded social and business events, but learned the trick of asking questions to find a way to enjoy them. “I decided that people have very interesting lives and if I am just willing to listen to their lives, I will have a very enjoyable time,” she told the graduates.

Woo recalled that she began to ask: “Where do you come from? Why did you make a change in your career? What do you like to do in your spare time? And afterwards, the person would say, ‘That Carolyn Woo, she is really bright.’ And I just want to say. I didn’t say one word that was intelligent. I just asked a lot of questions, and in that process, I celebrated that person.”

The following day, remarks by Gwen Ifill, Moderator and Managing Editor of “Washington Week” and Senior Correspondent for the “PBS NewsHour” at the Wake Forest Commencement, stuck a chord with me as well.

Do something.  “If you haven’t already, you have to decide what you care about, and then be prepared to act,” Ifill said. ”My charge to you today is, if you see something, do something. It is not essential that you care about every thing. But you have to care about something. Sometimes it just means thinking about how you speak, not just speaking.”

Be on board with change. She urged graduates to make “a promise to find a mission for your life…to be prepared for life to knock you off course.” She also urged the graduates “to stay curious.” “You always have to have another question in your hip pocket, a follow-up question we call it in the business,” Ifill said.  “Something that will take you out of your comfort zone. So you have to be open to the possibility of a change in direction. That stays through throughout your life. And you have to consider the possibility that the first answer might sometimes be no.”

Find a mentor. Ifill wished that the graduates would one day have a mentor like she had in Tim Russert, the Washington NBC news bureau chief who passed away in 2008 just before he was to deliver the commencement at Wake Forest. She urged them to find “someone who will talk you into something you ought to do that you are too scared to try…Someone who will watch out for you once you do it, and make sure that you succeed…Someone who will then turn you loose when it’s time and talk you into doing something else if you need to…”

(More: How to Find a Mentor)

Laugh. Ifill’s kicker counsel: “Oh, and don’t forget to laugh along the way. It’s the only way any of it can come together. You can’t be happy unless you’re laughing, especially at yourself.”

Kerry Hannon, Contributor

I cover boomer careers, retirement, aging and personal finance.

Follow me on Twitter, @KerryHannon I’m the author of Great Jobs for Everyone 50+: Finding Work That Keeps You Happy and Healthy … And Pays the Bills (John Wiley & Sons), available here www.kerryhannon.com. Check out my column at AARP. My weekly column  at PBS’s NextAvenue.org is here.

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Kerry and her nephew Michael at his recent Wake Forest graduation.
Courtesy of Kerry Hannon

When my nephew Michael walked across the graduation stage at Wake Forest University last week to pick up his bachelor of science diploma, I wasn’t worried about his financial future.

Ever since he was a teenager he has always saved and invested the money earned from a potluck of summer jobs. (I put that down to good parenting skills and the financial lessons modeled by my sister and her husband.)

But not every recent college graduate is as knowledgeable about personal finances.

So, inspired by Mike’s Wake Forest ceremony, I couldn’t resist jotting down 11 pieces of financial wisdom that I would’ve imparted if I’d been asked to be the commencement speaker.

(MORE: Career Advice to My Daughter on Graduation Day)

11 Personal Finance Tips for College Grads

Here goes:

1. Pick up a book or two on money basics. A couple that I like, written specifically for young adults, are Generation Earn: The Young Professional’s Guide to Spending, Investing and Giving Back, by U.S. News & World Report senior editor Kimberly Palmer and the bestselling Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your 20s and 30s by Beth Kobliner, a noted personal finance commentator and former colleague of mine at Money magazine.

2. Pencil out a budget. After working for a few months and getting used to the amount of take-home pay (after taxes) you’re earning, figure out how much money you can afford to spend each month.

Mapping out your budget is a great way to help you quickly uncover whether you’re on the rocky road to spending more than you make — as I was for a while after college.

I’m not ashamed to tell you that it was scary and stomach-turning to get phone calls from credit card companies. To set things straight, I borrowed money from my older brother to erase my credit-card debt (I repaid him over time, without interest) and began using my cards only when I knew I could pay them in full each month.

After that experience, I vowed never to let anything like it happen again.

To begin budgeting, first add up the essentials, like your rent, utilities, groceries, transportation, student loans and a car loan. That’ll let you know how much is left over for other spending and saving.

Try not to eat out at restaurants too much, take taxis or spend frivolously on clothes. You’ll probably need to jump-start your wardrobe for work, but there are plenty of ways to do so frugally. Don’t forget to check out secondhand stores for lightly used clothing buys — I found a terrific black Armani suit in one for a song not that long ago. (Some smart money habits stay with you.)

Bottom line: Always spend less than you make. Websites like Mint.com and Youneedabudget.com can help you create a workable budget.

(MORE: How to Be a Role Model for Your Adult Children)

3. Move in with your parents to keep housing costs down. This presumes they’re cool with the idea and won’t charge you rent. You’ll then be able to devote the money you save on housing to cutting your debt and increasing your savings.

I moved in with my mom and dad after college and was enormously grateful they let me stay rent-free; to return the favor, I helped out with the cooking and ran errands.

Not having rent payments let me squirrel away money, start an emergency fund and have enough cash for the one-month security deposit necessary for my first rental, a room in a group house with three other women in Washington, D.C.

4. Steer clear of debt. As my eight nephews and nieces know, this is one of my favorite mantras: “Debt is a dream killer.”

If you’re not saddled by debt payments, you’ll be more nimble and able to pursue a wider array of career opportunities.

Debt can stop you from taking a job you might love because the salary won’t be high enough to meet your monthly obligations.

It can even shut the door on a job offer altogether, because an increasing number of employers are checking prospective employees’ credit reports as part of their due diligence.

I admit this anti-debt advice will be tough for many new grads to follow. A recent Fidelity Investments study found that a stunning 70 percent of the class of 2013 is graduating with an average debt of $35,200.

And 42 percent of Millennials polled say their debt is “overwhelming,” according to a new Wells Fargo Retirement report, twice the rate of boomers who were surveyed.

5. Reduce your debt load as quickly as possible. If you have hefty college loans, “reframe the way you think about your debt,” says Ken Ilgunas, author of Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom. “Don’t think of your debt as a monthly bill, think of it as a sworn enemy. You need to hate your debt,” he adds.

Ilgunas, 29, speaks from experience. He managed to pay off $18,000 of his $35,000 student loan debt in one year.

But if you can’t match Ilguna’s fierce resolve, force yourself to pinch, pinch and pinch some more. Lowering your spending will raise the amount available to pay off your debt.

Adding an extra $25 to your monthly repayments can shorten the life of your student loan and save you interest. Making the payments through automatic debits from your bank account can reduce the interest rate, too, according to student-loan servicer Sallie Mae.

6. Top priority: an emergency fund. The rule of thumb from financial advisers is to try to set aside the equivalent of three to six months worth of living expenses. (Personally, I prefer a year, but that can take time to build.) Make this a personal goal.

A money market mutual fund or a bank savings account are smart places for your rainy day fund.

7. Start investing. No, it’s not too soon. In fact, one of the great advantages you have over people your parents’ and grandparents’ age is that you have many, many years ahead of you, which means more time for your money to grow. And, historically, buying stocks or mutual funds is the best way to do this.

The National Endowment for Financial Education’s website, Smartaboutmoney.org, offers free guides explaining the basics of stocks, bonds and mutual funds. You can also learn investing fundamentals by taking a course at a community college or signing up for a local seminar sponsored by a group like the American Association of Individual Investors, which doesn’t sell financial products.

8. Take advantage of your employer’s 401(k) or similar retirement plan. Workers under age 50 can contribute up to $17,500 to these programs in 2013. Your contributions, deducted from your paycheck automatically, are tax-deductible and your money grows tax-deferred until you take it out, ideally in retirement.

If possible, invest enough in your 401(k) to qualify for the full match (the amount your employer puts in as a result of how much you contribute).

Most employers require workers to save between 4 and 6 percent of pay to get the maximum match. Whatever the match, try to take your company up on it. Why refuse free money?

You might be leery to commit to a 401(k), worrying about tying the money up and thinking that you could invest outside the plan in whatever you want.

But trust me: the automatic feature of a 401(k) trumps those concerns. You’ll save for the future without having to think about it — and the penalties for early withdrawals will help keep you from dipping into the money. One day you’ll thank me.

(MORE: Mothers, Teach Your Daughters to Save for Retirement)

9. Which reminds me: Don’t raid your 401(k). I screwed this one up. When I switched jobs at age 30, I cashed out my first 401(k). Imagining what that money might be worth today, 23 years later, makes my heart sink.

10. And don’t skip health insurance either. When you’re in your 20s, you think you’ll never get sick or injured. But sudden illnesses do strike and accidents do happen. Insurance will help you pay the medical bills.

Under the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), you can be insured as a dependent on your parent’s health insurance plan if you’re under 26. The exception: If you can get health insurance through your own job.

If you can’t piggyback onto your parent’s plan and you don’t have a job with health insurance, you might need to buy a short-term policy. For advice on how to do it, take a look at my Next Avenue article, “What to Do About Health Insurance When You’re Self-Employed.”

Starting in January 2014, if your employer doesn’t provide health insurance, you’ll be able to buy it through one of the new health insurance marketplaces.

11. Finally, splurge a bit on life experiences. Sometimes, spending for fun stuff pays dividends. (And as my Irish father always said about money, “You can’t take it with you.”)

The summer I graduated from college I spent $1,500 I’d saved from summer jobs to go on my first trip to Europe, with my older brother. That experience has paid me back with decades of storytelling and memories too rich to put a dollar figure on.

For three weeks, we slept on trains and in youth hostels, lugging our knapsacks from town to town and country to country. Wow, what a journey!

Now that I think of it, I hope my nephew Michael uses the graduation check my husband and I gave him for a travel fund. Then, after he comes back from someplace great, he can start following my other tips.

posted by Kerry Hannon, May 29, 2013 More by this author

Kerry Hannon has spent more than 25 years covering personal finance for Forbes, Money, U.S. News & World Report and USA Today. Her website is kerryhannon.com. Follow her on Twitter @kerryhannon.

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They’re engaged, working hard — and happy.

None of them are “retired” or planning to step aside anytime soon. (If you’re a woman over 50 who wants to remain in the workforce for a while, I have some suggestions below.)

A Head-Scratching Retirement Study

That’s why I was perplexed after stumbling upon a blog post that asked, “Why do women retire earlier than men?” on the website of the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College. It was written by Phyllis Moen, McKnight presidential chair in sociology at the University of Minnesota and research fellow at the Sloan Center, and based on a study by Moen and Sarah M. Flood, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

(MORE: A Gen Xer’s Plea: ‘Mom, You Need to Prepare for Retirement’)

Moen reports that that women in their 50s, 60s and early 70s – sometimes called the encore years – “are less apt than men to be working for pay across this age span and more likely to use the word ‘retired’ to define themselves.”

She also notes that self-employment is less common among women than men in that age range. “When we broadened our scope to include any form of public engagement (paid work; volunteering; informally helping out), we found that men are still more apt to be engaged than women,” she writes, “and the percentages don’t match up until men and women are in their late 70s.”

Moen and Flood based their findings on data they reviewed concerning the amount of time Americans in their encore years allocate to paid work. They just published their conclusions in the journal Social Problems.

Reasons to Keep Working

I view their conclusions as disconcerting since I’m always preaching the importance of working as long as you can and gradually phasing into retirement through part-time, bridge jobs that let you stave off dipping into savings and delay claiming Social Security. (Your Social Security checks get 8 percent larger every year you postpone receiving them between age 62 to 70.)

As I wrote in my book, Great Jobs for Everyone 50+, work and volunteering give us a sense of purpose and help us feel connected and needed. It’s hard to pin a precise paycheck to those feelings, but they’re very real.

Moreover, many experts on aging say you’re likely to stay healthy as you get older by learning new things, remaining active socially and exercising. Stop challenging your brain with new experiences and you’ll be in trouble.

Yet Moen and Flood, drawing on the government’s American Time Use Survey, say boomer women are exiting the workforce faster than men and aren’t carving out much time for volunteering when they do.

What Makes Women Retire Earlier Than Men

Why? They cite three reasons:

• Women in this age group have poorer health, in general, than men.
• Women are “more likely than men to experience involuntary retirement” as a result of layoffs and buyouts.
• Women face more caregiving demands to assist their spouses, grandchildren and elderly parents and relatives.

That last one is a biggie. “Ms. Flood and I found that women who care for a nonresidential child or grandchild or for an infirm older adult,” Moen writes, “are about half as likely to be engaged in paid work than women without these obligations.”

(MORE: The Retirement Topic Nobody Likes to Talk About)

And here’s her jaw-dropping conclusion: “Charting the time allocations of women and men suggests that the encore life stage could become a new arena for gender inequality, in which women with caregiving obligations are selectively excluded from participating in public activities that society values.”

Moen believes employers need to welcome more women who want to work in their 50s through 70s. “The bonus years of health and vitality producing an emerging encore life stage can promote public engagement only if women and men in this age group can find flexible jobs, openings for less-than-full-time encores,” she says. “Such opportunities have yet to be institutionalized and legitimized in either government or corporate policies and practices.”

Wow. That’s a rousing call for action.

I won’t be doling out advice on how to steer clear of a corporate layoff or buyout here, since those kinds of decisions are often out of anyone’s control. (Next Avenue has another piece on what to do if you think you may be fired, though.) But I will do is lend some counsel on ways to get back in the door somewhere else.

Age Discrimination Plays a Role

One reason I suspect that so many women are retiring is that they’re hitting a wall getting back into the workplace after either a job loss or taking time off for caregiving duties.

Another is that they’re often running into subtle, but real, age discrimination. A new AARP survey of 1,502 adults ages 45 to 64 confirms this.

8 Tips for Women Who Aren’t Ready to Retire

So what should you do if you’re a woman over 50 and aren’t ready to retire? I have eight suggestions:

1. Sharpen your toolbox. If you don’t have the essential technical skills needed for a job, head to your local library or community college and get training. Taking classes or getting certified can strengthen your resumé.

2. Be sure you’re physically fit. There’s no need to run a super fast mile, but you should exude a vibrancy and energy that comes from being in shape. That will help convince employers you’re not running out of gas.

3. Reach out for referrals. Your online resumé won’t get you hired; an interview will. So your mission is to connect with anyone who can get you in the door for a face-to-face meeting.

As my Next Avenue colleague Nancy Collamer, a career coach, noted in her blog post, “The No. 1 Way to Get Hired Today,” a 2012 Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found that referred candidates were twice as likely to get interviews and 40% more likely to be hired than other candidates.

4. Sell your age as a plus. One of your calling cards, when you’re over 50, is that you have a storehouse of knowledge. There’s also a good chance you’ve built up leadership qualities that an employer could use.

5. Start your own business. Who says you have to work for someone else at this age? According to a new American Express report, the number of women-owned firms grew by 59% between 1997 and 2013 — outpacing the 41% increase in the total number of U.S. businesses.

So consider opening a consulting practice, making yourself available for short-term projects. Alternatively, you might find that creating a patchwork of income streams will give you the flexibility you crave, particularly if you’re taking on caregiving duties.

(MORE: How to Create a Career Transitions Group for Women)

6. Open yourself up to new possibilities. It’s easy to get locked into the “this is the kind of work I have always done” mentality. But now’s the time to kick that notion to the curb.

Look at your skill set and past work experience as a moveable feast that’s redeployable to lots of different fields.

7. Volunteer for a nonprofit. Not only will this help you keep your skills sharp, it could lead to a paid job. Forty-four percent of nonprofits plan to hire more workers this year, up from only a third of them two years ago, according to a survey by NonProfit HR Solutions, a human resources consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

Health-related nonprofits were most likely to report plans to hire, followed by environmental and animal-welfare groups.

You could look for opportunities on LinkedIn.com‘s volunteer area or at websites such as VolunteerMatch.org, Idealist.org and Allforgood.org.

Programs such as AARP’s Experience Corps and the federal Senior Corps can also help you find openings. You might even want to apply for one of the Encore Fellowships offered around the country by Encore.org.

(MORE: Encore Careers for the Rest of Us)

8. Work with a career coach. One of these pros can help you chart your next path in the working world. Search for potential coaches at Coachfederation.org, Lifeplanningnetwork.org and 2Young2Retire.com.

Employing these strategies will give you a better shot of retiring when you want and the way you want, rather than having that decision made for you by an employer.

Kerry Hannon, Contributor

Kerry Hannon has spent more than 25 years covering personal finance for Forbes, Money, U.S. News & World Report and USA Today. Her website is kerryhannon.com. Follow her on Twitter@kerryhannon.

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“I feel very good about what I’ve been able to make happen here, no matter what it has cost me in time and momentum on other things. I had to fight — against a truly insane insurance-medical complex, but I was able to get my mother a procedure that rescued her life. Even after that, she would have had little hope of recovery if she didn’t have someone who was able to put in the time and effort.”

Fighting for his mother’s medical care, my friend had, in essence, become a patient advocate.

We all find ourselves in that position at one time or another. In my family, my younger brother and sister-in-law led the charge as Dad battled Alzheimer’s.

The Booming Field of Patient Advocates

Because navigating the medical field can be a headache that no amount of Motrin can numb, there’s now a growth field known as professional patient advocates (or patient navigators), particularly among boomer women. In addition to providing comfort to the infirm, these aides can earn between $20 and $250 an hour, averaging about $125 an hour.

(MORE: Patient Navigators: New Help for Caregivers)

I first wrote about patient advocates in my book Great Jobs for Everyone 50+, noting some terrific part-time employment opportunities catering to America’s aging population. Recently, I wrote a New York Times article, “A Gray Jobs Market for All Ages,” featuring Kelly Lonigan, 71, a former clinical social worker who decided to “unretire” and enroll in the fast-track, online patient advocacy certificate program for older students from Empowered UCLA Extension, featured earlier on Next Avenue. Patient advocacy is one of the school’s most popular courses.

The profession, however, is so new that there are no state licenses, requirements or accreditation for its workers. There isn’t even a singular definition of a patient advocate.

What Patient Advocates Do

A patient advocate’s responsibilities can include wrestling with billing mistakes on medical bills and negotiating with insurers who’ve rejected policyholders for coverage. The advocate might also help patients pick doctors, discuss treatment options, assist in finding a specialist or hospital, keep track of prescriptions or accompany patients to doctor appointments to take notes and ask questions.

Just as the work of a patient advocate varies, so does the way you can enter the field. You could:

• Hang out a shingle and work on an hourly basis for one person or a family.
• Join a hospital, medical center or nursing home.
• Sign up with the American Cancer Society, which offers cancer patient navigators in selected cities. The National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute is also financing several patient navigator pilot projects.
• Land a job via the Affordable Care Act (sometimes known as Obamacare), which includes a provision for insurance navigators at community groups, trade associations, chambers of commerce who will help new enrollees evaluate federal and state health exchange insurance plans,

(MORE: 3 Things Women Should Know About Health Reform)

Why People Become Patient Advocates

To learn what it takes to become a patient advocate, I called Elisabeth Schuler Russell, a pioneer in the field. A former State Department Foreign Service officer, in 2004 she founded Patient Navigator in Vienna, Va., after guiding her 2-year-old daughter’s journey through an inoperable brainstem tumor. Russell is also president of the National Association of Healthcare Advocacy Consultants.

“People always say to me, ‘You’re not a nurse, how can you do this work?’” Russell says. Easy. The skills she acquired in her 25-year diplomatic career — ones you may share — carried over into her new line of work, namely oral and written communication and negotiating.

Russell says most patient advocates are women who have been through some kind of complicated encounter with the medical delivery system, either for themselves or a family member or spouse. “They know what it’s like to feel lost in the system,” she says.

Many advocates become motivated, Russell says, by this noble thought: “I know things that can prevent other people from having to go through what I’ve gone through.”

Medically trained professionals — doctors, nurses and social workers — are also segueing into the advocacy route. “They want to take what they know and help families,” Russell says.

(MORE: Three Great Jobs to Ride the Age Wave)

3 Tips to Be a Successful Patient Advocate

If you’re intrigued about becoming a patient advocate, here are three tips:

1. Enroll in a specialized program. You can get schooling in a variety of ways. There are an increasing number of patient advocacy certificate programs around the country. The Master List of Health and Patient Advocacy Educational Courses, Programs and Organizations is a great resource for finding them.

Universities are teaching patient advocacy, too. Sarah Lawrence College has a master’s level program and the University of Wisconsin and the University of Miami offer courses online. You can learn more about programs like these from the National Association of Healthcare Advocacy Consultants and the nonprofit Patient Advocate Foundation.

You’ll increase your value as a patient advocate — and your potential income — by developing an expertise, focusing on, say, cancer, insurance or the elderly. This will deepen your knowledge, giving you a marketable niche.

If you’re eyeing the aging market, for example, you might enroll in the Society of Certified Senior Advisors’ certification program.

2. Expand your general knowledge of the healthcare system. It takes more than a desire to share what you’ve learned about the medical miasma to really add value to your clients. You’ll want to develop an understanding of the intricacies of private insurance, including its process of appeals and denials, as well as a grounding in Medicare.

Plus, you’ll want to glean the skinny on the bureaucratic structure of the agencies you’ll work with: hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, rehab and cancer centers and doctor’s offices.

3. Make sure you’re prepared emotionally. You’ll be hired to serve as an objective third party for a patient, but it’s impossible to do the job without experiencing some trauma yourself. “The work can be hard on the soul and emotionally taxing,” Russell says. “I have cried many times.”

That said, the ability to solve problems for patients and families can offset that sorrow. While you probably can’t make a full-time living as a patient advocate, this is precisely the kind of work that has the magic healing power to transcend financial rewards.

As my friend wrote in his email: “I asked my mother what she would have done if I hadn’t been here. She said, ‘I would have given up.’ And that says it all.”

posted by Kerry Hannon, April 20, 2013 More by this author

Kerry Hannon has spent more than 25 years covering personal finance for Forbes, Money, U.S. News & World Report and USA Today. Her website is kerryhannon.com. Follow her on Twitter @kerryhannon.

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Over the past 10 years, however, I’ve crafted my trade from my home office in Washington, D.C.; in reality, it’s more of a floating location.

So I’ve lived both sides of the “working from home” debate, now a hot topic due to Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer’s recent decision to put the kibosh on telecommuting at her company.

(MORE: The Problem With Yahoo’s Work-at-Home Ban)

And although I love working from home, I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge there are perils that come with it. I’ll run down the four biggest ones in a minute, along with my advice on how to make the best of them.

Bad Memories of Working at the Office

Thinking back to my days “going” to work, I recall dreading the sensation of being trapped in an office, feeling as if I needed to ask permission (as I often did) to slip out for lunch beyond the “biosphere,” as I dubbed one former employer’s imposing news gathering facility.

For me and many of my friends and colleagues who also work at home, deciding when to get our jobs done — whether it’s 5 a.m. or 10 p.m. — makes us feel more in charge, more alive and more engaged.

Still, based on my experience and conversations I’ve had with friends who also work from home, I’m here to say that telecommuting can be hazardous to your wealth and to your career. Here’s why and how you can make working from home, well, work.

One caveat: The cohorts I canvassed are in their 50s and 60s, so they’re generally not dealing with the parenting issues that often get tangled up in the work-from-home debate.

The 4 Perils of Working From Home

1. You might lose track of time. Oh, if only my former bosses could see me now. I vividly remember how hard it was to get myself to the office in time for a 9 a.m. mandatory staff meeting every Thursday. These days, though, I work many more hours than when I toiled in-house — and that’s by choice.

I’m not always thrilled, however, about my work-at-home workday (and night). A recent New York Times op-ed article on the need to back away from the computer screen and smartphone really hit home. Sometimes I could use someone to pull me away from my desk. But I love what I do and it doesn’t always feel like work.

(MORE: Secrets of Claiming a Home Office Deduction)

My advice: I agree with Matthew Solan, whose article about the good, the bad and the bottom line of a home office said: Create daily work hours, stick with them and at the end of the day, turn everything off, shut the door and close up shop.

If you work for an employer, try to set a clear schedule and let your boss and colleagues know what it is. Otherwise, you could be inviting phone calls and emails late at night and on weekends.

If you’re self-employed, set a limit on your daily hours — and try not to go over it.

2. Your career might plateau. I’ve turned down the chance to climb the editors’ ranks because I knew it would be hard to be a manager while working from home.

But I’m not upset about this. That’s because I’ve grown to realize that my definition of career success didn’t mean moving up the masthead, taking on more responsibility and being a boss. What’s more, a job like that wouldn’t suit my temperament.

I do, however, miss the bonding, friendships and opportunities to meet new people in an office — those things rarely happen when you work from home. “Even when you go in for meetings, you never quite get that,” one telecommuting friend told me, somewhat longingly.

My peers working from home full-time for one employer with one or more corporate offices conceded that the inability to climb the ladder has been an unspoken trade-off that came with telecommuting.

“You can’t expect to get promotions if you’re not there,” a 50-something female friend who has worked for a large insurer for 15 years told me. “I’m OK with that.”

By nature, bosses tend to fret about not being able to control what you do with your time and their powerlessness to keep tabs on your whereabouts. (Co-worker envy can be palpable, too, making you feel isolated and shut out.)

There are, of course, some companies where everyone works from home, offering up a greater possibility of moving up the corporate ladder. But those are still pretty rare.

If you work from home for a traditional employer, your salary can stagnate as a result of a plateauing career, which can have an unpleasant ripple effect on your retirement.

When your income doesn’t rise, it’s harder to increase the amount you put into your 401(k) or a similar employer-sponsored savings plan every year. Your employer’s match will be muted as a result, too.

My advice: Make sure you put in face time with your employer or employers. Attend on-site meetings and have lunch or coffee with virtual colleagues and bosses.

These in-person moments are the key to avoiding the out-of-sight, out-of-mind syndrome. They may not get you a promotion, but they could help you nail the raise you deserve. Your best argument for earning more pay, of course, is a great performance at work — wherever you do your job.

You’ll also want to continually push yourself to save as much for retirement as you can. Don’t forget: You have until April 15 to fund a 2012 Individual Retirement Account and put in up to $6,000 if you’re 50 or older; $5,000 if you’re younger.

3. You’re all alone.  When you work remotely, there’s no one to ask the follow-up question or to directly challenge your thinking. You may miss out on rich collaborations, brainstorming and the synergy you get from simply being “in the room.” This is Marissa Mayer’s chief argument against working from home.

More subtly, you can’t read body language during a speakerphone conference meeting. So not seeing your colleagues may prevent you from understanding what’s really going on.

My advice: Talk with your boss and workmates whenever you can. And I do mean talk — not sending an email or text, which are less personal.

“I often opt for a phone call rather than an email,” says a pal who’s a telecommuting IBM sales executive. “I know not everyone appreciates the time zap, but I preface it by saying: ‘It’s a quick question.’” She thinks phone calls result in more honest responses than she’d get with emails.

If possible, try establishing preset, scheduled phone calls that occur on a regular basis.

(MORE: Working from Home: The Good, the Bad and the Bottom Line)

4. There’s no tech desk on speed dial. The truth is, if you’re working at a place where most employees are in the office, those are the folks the IT team is likeliest to assist.

My advice: Try to get on good terms with at least one person in your employer’s IT department, someone who won’t mind if you call with niggling questions and will be willing to jump in when you have an emergency.

Make an extra effort to show your appreciation. Stop by the office and take the tech whiz to lunch from time to time. Or send a Starbuck’s gift card.

If you’re self-employed, you can probably find tech support at Apple’s in-store Genius Bar (if you own a Mac) or at Best Buy. But you may need to make an appointment, putting you out of commission until the staffer can see you.

You also might want to sign up for computer classes at a community college or, if you’re a Mac user, at a nearby Apple store. That way, you could become your own IT pro, in some circumstances.

Home, But Not Alone

One last thought about working from home: To paraphrase the poet John Donne, “No man (or woman) is an island.”

The best work is collaborative. As much as I love being independent, I’m well aware that my work shines brightest after it has been touched by the inspiration of another — wherever that person is, home or office.

posted by Kerry Hannon, March 26, 2013 More by this author

Kerry Hannon has spent more than 25 years covering personal finance for Forbes, Money, U.S. News & World Report and USA Today. Her website is kerryhannon.com. Follow her on Twitter @kerryhannon.

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