The flu has arrived, delivering its gifts of body aches, fevers, and nausea earlier and more generously than usual. As of the first week in January, 47 states were reporting widespread incidence of flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York state and the city of Boston, which has recorded 10 times as many cases of flu this year as at this point last season, have both declared public health emergencies in the face of the epidemic. States in the southeast and Midwest have reported particularly high flu activity.For employees, a bout of the flu means making an impo... view article details

Vacationing for a Living When you're lying on the white sands of the Mexican Riviera, the stresses of the world seem a million miles away. Hey, snap out of it! This is no vacation - you have a deadline to meet! Therein lies the dilemma for travel writer and food critic Edie Jarolim. "I always loved traveling and always like to eat, but it never occurred to me that I could make money doing both of those things," Jarolim said. Now you can read her travel advice everywhere - in Arts and Antiques, in Brides, or in one of her three published books, including The Complete Idiot's Travel Guide to Me... view article details

 Closing TimeClosing is the last step in buying a home. Unless you are paying cash for the house, you cannot buy without backing from a lender, which comes in the form of a commitment letter. The lender will require that you have a homeowner's insurance policy on the property, so you will need to arrange this before the closing.At closing you will be asked how you want to hold the title, which basically refers to ownership. If you alone will own the house, it's sole ownership; joint tenancy applies when two or more people are purchasing, but each holds the right to dispose of his or her share.... view article details

In the modern war for talent, it’s every company’s dream to secure spots on coveted lists that dub their workplace ‘the holy grail’ of organizations. While many industries and companies are struggling to attract qualified candidates, making it onto Forbes’ ‘America’s Best Employers’ top 500 – a list derived by polling 30,000 U.S. employees – is an accomplishment that can help companies edge out the competition. Here are America’s top five best employers from 2018, according to Forbes. We also provided the average median annual salaries for roles associated with these industries based on Salar... view article details

The holidays bring with it extra expenditures that can be difficult to manage especially in light of the current economic situation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, over the past 24 months, consumer prices have risen 7.8%, making it increasingly difficult for consumers to keep up with the essentials. Information Resources, Inc., an independent market-data firm, recently conducted a survey of how consumers’ shopping and spending habits have changed in recent months. The results, while not surprising, are quite interesting. They report that the majority of consumers earning less t... view article details

Apple is Swimming in Cash Late last month, Apple announced it has a mind-boggling $110 billion in cash reserves. Over at The Atlantic, a blogger decided to make sense of this information by translating the abstract sum into a concrete visual.Apple's cash reserves, it turns out, could fill 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools with $1 bills. I decided to take this logic a step further and look at how much space other sums of money would occupy. How much space would the average American household need to store its annual income? How many briefcases full of bills are needed to pay for a colleg... view article details

You Might Want to Avoid These Jobs Years ago, Bobby McFerrin told us all to “don’t worry, be happy.” Clearly he wasn’t working in one of the careers on this list.The work website Careerbliss has come out with a survey detailing which careers feature workers who are the unhappiest. After analyzing more than 25,000 independent company reviews, these 10 jobs are the ones which feature the largest amounts of employee discontent. In order to compile these rankings, CareerBliss data evaluates the key factors that affect work happiness including: bosses, support and incentives, growth opport... view article details

The modern war for talent has created unprecedented opportunity and flexibility for experienced job-seekers and current employees. Still, as tech transforms the office and remote workers frolic in exotic locations, most folks are still focused on a simple agenda: put in work and get paid. But everyone in this evolving workforce deserves a work environment that encourages them to aim for a higher purpose. Whether it’s knowing your individual work contributed to the company’s bottom line or indirectly made some positive difference in a client’s life, there’s power in labor beyond the paycheck. ... view article details

Additional insights from the 2006 Stay at Home/Working Mom study include:Working moms get less sleep.Working Moms reported getting only 6.4 hours of sleep per night, versus 6.7 for the Stay at Home Moms.The study suggests that in a week, the extra 2 hours that the Working Moms devote to their two jobs results in 2 fewer hours of sleep.Working Moms and Stay at Home moms both spend roughly 4 hours per week nurturing the emotional needs of their kids in the “mom job” of psychologist. The big difference appears to be in the “mom job” of day care center teacher, with Stay at Home Moms reporting an ... view article details

What If Moms Were Paid? Maybe it’s an increased commitment to battle the gender wage gap, the rise of female breadwinners, or women heeding the call to “Lean In.” But whatever the reason, Salary.com’s annual “Mom Salary” survey was more popular than ever and created some great insights in 2014.But before we begin, we need to stress something. This is not an exact science, nor is it meant to be. We understand no one survey could ever truly encapsulate what a parent does, and many mothers disagree that what they do is a job. We don’t do this to demean or devalue mothers – quite the oppo... view article details