Read Stacey’s post on charitbale giving at wowowow:

http://www.wowowow.com/blog/42467/think-you-cant-afford-give-send-clowns-stacey-tisdale-425112

As the recession makes it clear that there is a lot more to our financial lives than dollars and cents, critically- acclaimed, The True Cost of Happiness: The Real Story Behind Managing Your Money, continues to connect with the public’s desire to understand what’s really driving their financial lives.

Take this introspective journey and learn how the lessons you learned about money as a child, social stereotypes about gender, race, ethnicity, as well as pressures to “keep up” with advertising messages and “The Joneses” play out in your financial experience.  Learn how to step away from those influences that don’t serve you so that you can live a life that reflects who you really are and what you really value.

Since its release in 2007, The True Cost of Happiness has been used as a model for financial education programs across the country including a program launched by the White House and financial literacy giant Operation HOPE for Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the country.

Stay tuned for information on national and international media appearances!

We are going to show you how to celebrate the holidays in style.   And by that, we do not mean dusting off your credit cards and putting on your track shoes for the mall.  There are a few simple things you can do to have a calmer, happier, thriftier holiday season.  Start now to prepare. 

• Go shopping in your own home.  One of the great secrets to leading a more frugal life is decluttering.  If you have great piles of stuff, it’s hard to see and use what you have.  That’s particularly true of holiday decorations.  Starting now, look for, find and label your holiday items.  That way, you won’t have to run out to the store to buy more of what you already have.
• Holiday meals do not have to be expensive.  Supermarkets sharply discount turkeys at Thanksgiving, for example.  The trick is to make most things yourself, rather than relying on prepared foods.
• Have your guests bring a dish.  Even a dedicated non-cook can bring flowers, wine, chocolates, or bread or dessert from the bakery. 
• Many of our frugal friends follow the One Big Gift rule.  One gift is new and relatively expensive; everything else is inexpensive or homemade or hand-me-down. 
• Or, if you have a big family, think about a holiday gift exchange.  Put all the names into a hat, and have each person draw a name. 
• Learn to bake, if you don’t already.  Sugar cookies, for example, take about 5 minutes to mix.  If you don’t have a recipe, putting “sugar cookies recipe” into a search engine recently yielded 157 million hits.  (Kids love to bake cookies.  If you don’t have a child, borrow one for this purpose.) 
• Instead of buying red and green or blue and yellow candles, ribbons, tablecloths or other decorations, think white. White works for every holiday. 
• If you like to have a great big pile of presents at the holidays, wrap items individually. 
• If you hate wrapping gifts, or hate the thought of throwing wrapping paper in the trash, you can make permanent gift bags out of fabric or felt.  Glue or sew them, and they will last for many years.
• Make friends with the dollar store.  There are lots of small cute things there that make great party favors or stocking stuffers.
• Look at the bargain book table in the bookstore.  You can get nice books for a few dollars that make great gifts. 
• There are many free concerts at the holidays.  Plan to visit at least one. 
• A thoughtful gift will always win out over an expensive one.  Spend the next few months paying close attention to the people you love.  You will hear them talk about inexpensive items they enjoy.  Choose one as a gift, and they will be delighted to know that you listened.    
• When possible, carpool to family functions.  Not only will you save money on gas and tolls, you will also have the rare opportunity to talk in depth with members of your family. 
• Search the neighborhood for the most decorated house and take the family to see it. 
• Make your own music.  You find words to songs on the internet.  Or ask one of the kids to make a holiday mix using mp3s.   

In an effort to help Americans move through the economic crisis, the Today Show is devoting the 9 to 9:30 half hour every Wednesday to finding out what’s on people’s minds. Stacey joins financial gurus and authors Jean Chatzky, David Bach, and CNBC’s Carmen Wong Ulrich to take viewer questions via phone, email, Skype, and from a live audience as the newest member of the “Money 911” team.  She debuts tomorrow as she and Carmen answer the tough questions!

Stacey is also profiled in the October issue of Black Enterprise magazine!

On October 1^st, Stacey will address a crowd of 30,000 in Nigeria as the African nation celebrates  Independence Day - nearly 50 years of independence from

http://twitter.com/STisdale1

ABC’s 20-20 is airing a segment this Friday at 10:00 PM Eastern in which they filmed one of Dr. Ted Klonz, and Rick Kahler’s money workshops at their Onsite Workshops entity.  I was so moved by Dr. Klonz and Rick’s work, as well as a few other financial professionals that truly ‘get’ that there is more to our financial choices than dollars and cents, that I was inspired to write a book about it.  That decision has been one of the defining moments of my career and life. I am truly blessed to be able to call them mentors. As I move deeper into my financial literacy work, I am meeting many people who acknowledge that our discussions about money must look at the ways in which things like role modeling, race, gender, emotions, psychology, etc., play out in our financial behavior.  When you look at what they are teaching and what they are selling, however, very few are brave enough to actually go down this road and go deeper than the numbers.  So many are locked into the very patterns that they are supposed to be lifting people out of.

Bravo to ABC’s 20/20 for realizing that this approach to money deserves national attention on one of the network’s most prominent shows.  I also urge you all to find the chapter in Wynona Judd’s autobiography in which she describes how taking an honest look at what her financial choices really represented with Ted and Rick was one of the best things that she has ever done.

I urge all of you to check out this Friday’s episode of 20/20.  And I promise Ted and Rick that I will continue to do all that I can to expand the national dialogue with money beyond the numbers to the real causes of the problems.  It’s truly becoming a matter of ‘getting this’ or sinking for our country.

Congratulations friends on the ways in which you have made so many people’s lives better and helped them make lasting change.  Thank you for opening my eyes and giving the greatest gift one person can give to another: Inspiration!

http://www.wowowow.com/blog/42467/dont-pitch-bitch-stacey-tisdale-344346

Check the link for a provocative article by Stacey.

Here’s a link to her column:

http://www.wowowow.com/think/how-to-get-kids-smart-about-money-tips-stacey-tisdale-307325

94% of respondents surveyed by Money Magazine say they will make lasting change to the way they hand money due to the recession.  History tells another story.  We tend to fall back into our old habits when the economy improves. 

Author Stacey Tisdale gives tips on how to hold onto the lessons we’ve learned in this downturn.   The live segment airs on the 9:00 AM half hour of NBC’s Today Show, Monday May 25.

Follow Stacey as she works with global financial literacy giant Operation HOPE, http://www.operationhope.org/smdev, to bring attention to this important and timely issue!

Go to Operation HOPE’s  http://www.5millionkids.org/ to give the gift of financial literacy to a child and truly make a difference in their life.

1. Spend cash instead of pulling out a credit card.  Studies show that it is harder to spend “real” money than “plastic” money. 
2. Make frugality a game rather than a burden.  See how far you can stretch your next $20 bill.  How long can you go without spending it or taking out your plastic?
3. Make a budget.  Tinker with it until it works for you.  Teach your kids to do the same.  
4. If your bank offers free automatic bill paying, sign up.  Saves stamps.
5. Make friends with your car.  Actually read the owner’s manual.  Figure out how to check the oil and tire pressure. Advanced degree – learn how to change the oil.
6. For short trips, walk instead of taking a car, a cab, or the subway.  Its great exercise and you’ll notice more of what’s around you.
7. Trade in the cell phone with the expensive plan for a prepaid cell phone (but only if there’s no cancellation fee.)  You are likely to be much more careful about your calls that way. 
8. Better yet, write one or two letters a month.  Or send emails rather than calling.
9. See if you can go for a month buying nothing but food and bare necessities.
10. Many hairdressers will trim your bangs for free, so you can stretch out the time between haircuts.
11. Take your lunch to work for one month.  The food you make at home is likely to be more nutritious, and it almost certainly costs less than prepared food. 
12. Have your good shoes re-soled and re-heeled instead of buying new.  Have heel plates put on to extend the wear.
13. Even if you are hopelessly un-handy, resolve to learn how to do one thing around the house this spring. 
14. If going out to eat is important to you, how about just going out for dessert or coffee and having the main meal at home?
15. Attached to name brands?  Try generic for a change.  Is your family attached?  Put the generics in the name-brand box and see if they notice. 
16. Try using less laundry detergent than the label calls for.  See if your clothes get as clean.
17. Try line-drying laundry.  You don’t have to have a backyard – a basement or bathtub will do.
18. Hand-wash your sweaters instead of dry-cleaning them.  Use a detergent made for hand-washing.
19. Share magazines with your friends.  Each of you subscribe to one magazine you all like, then trade.  Or use your library to read your favorite magazines.
20. If you have an mp3 player, explore the hundreds of thousands of free podcasts available.  There are news shows, public radio and TV programs, instructional videos, language learning. 
21. Do you really need 700 TV channels?  Scale back to basic cable for a month, and see how much you really miss it.
22. Even more radical, turn off the TV entirely, and reacquaint yourself and your family with the ancient art of conversation.
23. Decide that you will learn to make great coffee at home instead of buying it.  Get a thermos and take it to work. 
24. Join Facebook or another social networking site and get your friends to do it.  If you already have an Internet connection, it’s no-cost fun.  Just remember, don’t put anything on your Facebook page that you don’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper. 
25. Eat vegetarian at least once a week.